The Abkhazians call their homeland Аҧсны (Apsny, Aṗsny), popularly etymologised as "a land/country of the soul",[16] yet literally meaning "a country of mortals (mortal beings)".[17] It possibly first appeared in the seventh century in an Armenian text as Psin(oun), perhaps referring to the historical Apsilians,[18] the state is formally designated as the "Republic of Abkhazia" or "Apsny".[10]

The Russian Абхазия (Abkhazia) is adapted from the Georgianაფხაზეთი (Apkhazeti). In Mingrelian, Abkhazia is known as აბჟუა (Abzhua)[19] or სააფხაზო (saapkhazo).[20] Abkhazia's names in Western languages derived directly from the Russian form: Abkhazie in French; Abkhazien in Danish; Abchasien in German; Abcházie in Czech; Abchazië in Dutch; Abcasia in Italian; Abjasia in Spanish; and Abcázia in Portuguese.

Between 1000 and 550 BC, the Greeks established trade colonies along the Black Sea coast of present-day Abkhazia, in particular at Pitiunt and Dioscurias, which was to become the capital of modern-day Abkhazia, encountering local warlike tribes whom they dubbed Heniochi.[citation needed] Classical authors described various peoples living in the region and the great multitude of languages they spoke.[27]Arrian, Pliny and Strabo have given accounts of the Abasgoi[28] and Moschoi[29] peoples somewhere in modern Abkhazia on the eastern shore of the Black Sea.

The Roman Empire conquered Egrisi in the 1st century AD and ruled it until the 4th century, following which it regained a measure of independence, but remained within the Byzantine Empire's sphere of influence, although the exact time when the population of the region of Abkhazia was converted to Christianity has not been determined, it is known that the Metropolitan of Pityus participated in the First Ecumenical Council in 325 in Nicaea.[citation needed]

Around the mid 6th century AD, the Byzantines and the neighbouring Sassanid Persia fought for supremacy over Abkhazia for 20 years, a conflict known as the Lazic War.

Abkhazia, or Abasgia in classic sources, formerly part of Colchis and later of Lazica until the late 690s, was a princedom under Byzantine authority. Anacopia was the princedom's capital. The country was mostly Christian, with the archbishop's seat in Pityus.[30] An Arab incursion into Abkhazia led by Marwan II, was repelled by Leon I jointly with his Lazic and Iberian allies in 736.

After acquiring Lazica via a dynastic union in the 780s[31] the Kingdom of Abkhazia was established and became a dominant power in western Caucasus, during this period the Georgian language replaced Greek as the language of literacy and culture.[32] The western Georgian kingdom flourished between 850 and 950 when it annexed significant parts of central Georgia. A period of unrest ensued, which ended as Abkhazia and eastern Georgian states were unified under a single Georgian monarchy, ruled by King Bagrat III (who was buried in the Monastery of Bedia in eastern Abkhazia) at the end of the 10th century and the beginning of the 11th century. In 12th century, king David the Builder appointed the son of shahShirvan Otago as an Eristavi of Abkhazia, who later became the founder of House of Shervashidze (also known as Sharvashidze, or Chachba). In the 1240s, Mongols divided Georgia into eight military-administrative sectors (dumans), the territory of contemporary Abkhazia formed part of the duman administered by Tsotne Dadiani.

In the 16th century, after the break-up of the Georgian Kingdom into small kingdoms and principalities, Principality of Abkhazia (nominally a vassal of the Kingdom of Imereti) emerged, ruled by the Shervashidze dynasty,[4] since the 1570s, when the Ottoman navy occupied the fort of Tskhumi, Abkhazia came under the influence of the Ottoman Empire and Islam. Under Ottoman rule, the majority of Abkhaz elite converted to Islam, the principality retained a degree of autonomy. Georgia signed a treaty with Russia for protection against the Ottoman Empire in 1773 and was seemingly absorbed, while Abkhazia sought protection from Russia in 1801, but was declared as "an autonomous principality" by the Russians in 1810.[33][34] Russia then annexed Abkhazia in 1864, and Abkhaz resistance was quashed as the Russians deported Muslim Abkhaz to Ottoman territories.[4][24][33]

In the beginning of the 19th century, while the Russians and Ottomans were vying for control of the region, the rulers of Abkhazia shifted back and forth across the religious divide.[citation needed] The first attempt to enter into relations with Russia was made by Keilash Bey in 1803, shortly after the incorporation of eastern Georgia into the expanding Tsarist empire (1801). However, the pro-Ottoman orientation prevailed for a short time after his assassination by his son Aslan-Bey on 2 May 1808,[35] on 2 July 1810, the Russian Marinesstormed Sukhum-Kale and had Aslan-Bey replaced with his rival brother, Sefer-Bey (1810–1821), who had converted to Christianity and assumed the name of George. Abkhazia joined the Russian Empire as an autonomous principality, in 1810.[4] However, George's rule, as well as that of his successors, was limited to the neighbourhood of Sukhum-Kale and the Bzyb area.[citation needed] The next Russo-Turkish war strongly enhanced the Russian positions, leading to a further split in the Abkhaz elite, mainly along religious divisions, during the Crimean War (1853–1856), Russian forces had to evacuate Abkhazia and Prince Michael (1822–1864) seemingly switched to the Ottomans.[citation needed]

Later on, the Russian presence strengthened and the highlanders of Western Caucasia were finally subjugated by Russia in 1864.[citation needed] The autonomy of Abkhazia, which had functioned as a pro-Russian "buffer zone" in this troublesome region, was no longer needed by the Tsarist government and the rule of the Shervashidze came to an end; in November 1864, Prince Michael was forced to renounce his rights and resettle in Voronezh.[citation needed] Later that same year, Abkhazia was incorporated into the Russian Empire as a special military province[4] of Sukhum-Kale which was transformed, in 1883, into an okrug as part of the KutaisGuberniya. Large numbers of Muslim Abkhazians, said to have constituted as much as 40% of the Abkhazian population, emigrated to the Ottoman Empire between 1864 and 1878 with other Muslim population of Caucasus, a process known as Muhajirism.

Large areas of the region were left uninhabited and many Armenians, Georgians, Russians and others subsequently migrated to Abkhazia, resettling much of the vacated territory,[36] some Georgian historians assert that Georgian tribes (Svans and Mingrelians) had populated Abkhazia since the time of the Colchis kingdom.[37]

By official decision of the Russian authorities the residents of Abkhazia and Samurzakano had to study and pray in Russian, after the mass deportation of 1878, Abkhazians were left in the minority, officially branded "guilty people", and had no leader capable of mounting serious opposition to Russification.[38] On 17 March 1898 the synodal department of the Russian Orthodox Church of Georgia-Imereti, by order 2771, again prohibited teaching and the conduct of religious services in church schools and churches of the Sukhumi district in Georgian. Mass protests by the Georgian population of Abkhazia and Samurzakano followed, news of which reached the Russian emperor, on 3 September 1898 the Holy Synod issued order 4880 which decreed that those parishes where the congregation was Mingrelians i.e. Georgians, conduct both church services and church education in Georgian, while Abkhazian parishes use old Slavic; in the Sukhumi district, this order was carried out in only three of 42 parishes.[38] Tedo Sakhokia demanded the Russian authorities introduce Abkhazian and Georgian languages in church services and education, the official response was a criminal case brought against Tedo Sakhokia and leaders of his "Georgian Party" active in Abkhazia.[38]

The Russian Revolution of 1917 led to the creation of an independent Georgia which included Abkhazia, in 1918.[4] German support enabled the Georgians to repel the Bolshevik threat from Abkhazia in 1918, the 1921 constitution granted Abkhazia autonomy.

In 1921, the Bolshevik Red Army invaded Georgia and ended its short-lived independence. Abkhazia was made a Socialist Soviet Republic (SSR Abkhazia) with the ambiguous status of a treaty republic associated with the Georgian SSR.[4][39][40] In 1931, Joseph Stalin made it an autonomous republic (Abkhaz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic or in short Abkhaz ASSR) within the Georgian SSR.[24] Despite its nominal autonomy, it was subjected to strong direct rule from central Soviet authorities. Under the rule of Stalin and Beria Abkhaz schools were closed, requiring Abkhaz children to study in the Georgian language.[41][42][43] The publishing of materials in Abkhazian dwindled and was eventually stopped altogether; Abkhazian schools were closed in 1945/46.[44] In the terror of 1937-38, the ruling elite was purged of Abkhaz and by 1952 over 80% of the 228 top party and government officials and enterprise managers were ethnic Georgians; there remained 34 Abkhaz, 7 Russians and 3 Armenians in these positions.[45]Georgian Communist Party leader Candide Charkviani supported the Georgianization of Abkhazia.[46]

The policy of repression was eased after Stalin's death[24] and Beria's execution, and the Abkhaz were given a greater role in the governance of the republic,[24] as in most of the smaller autonomous republics, the Soviet government encouraged the development of culture and particularly of literature.[citation needed] The Abkhazian ASSR was the only autonomous republic in the USSR in which the language of the titular nation (in that case Abkhazian) was confirmed in its constitution as one of its official languages.[47]

As the Soviet Union began to disintegrate at the end of the 1980s, ethnic tensions grew between the Abkhaz and Georgians over Georgia's moves towards independence. Many Abkhaz opposed this, fearing that an independent Georgia would lead to the elimination of their autonomy, and argued instead for the establishment of Abkhazia as a separate Soviet republic in its own right; in June 1988, a manifesto defending Abkhaz distinctiveness (known as the Abkhaz Letter) was sent to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

The Georgian–Abkhaz dispute turned violent on 16 July 1989 in Sukhumi. Sixteen Georgians are said to have been killed and another 137 injured when they tried to enroll in a Georgian university instead of an Abkhaz one, after several days of violence, Soviet troops restored order in the city and blamed rival nationalist paramilitaries for provoking confrontations.

In March 1990, Georgia declared sovereignty, unilaterally nullifying treaties concluded by the Soviet government since 1921 and thereby moving closer to independence, the Republic of Georgia boycotted the 17 March 1991 all-Union referendum on the renewal of the Soviet Union called by Gorbachev; however, 52.3% of Abkhazia's population (almost all of the ethnic non-Georgian population) took part in the referendum and voted by an overwhelming majority (98.6%) to preserve the Union.[48][49] Most ethnic non-Georgians in Abkhazia later boycotted a 31 March referendum on Georgia's independence, which was supported by a huge majority of Georgia's population. Within weeks, Georgia declared independence on 9 April 1991, under former Soviet dissident Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Under Gamsakhurdia, the situation was relatively calm in Abkhazia and a power-sharing agreement was soon reached between the Abkhaz and Georgian factions, granting to the Abkhaz a certain over-representation in the local legislature.[50]

Gamsakhurdia's rule was soon challenged by armed opposition groups, under the command of Tengiz Kitovani, that forced him to flee the country in a military coup in January 1992. Former Soviet foreign minister and architect of the disintegration of the USSR Eduard Shevardnadze became the country's head of state, inheriting a government dominated by hard-line Georgian nationalists, he was not an ethnic nationalist but did little to avoid being seen as supporting his administration's dominant figures and the leaders of the coup that swept him to power.[citation needed]

On 21 February 1992, Georgia's ruling Military Council announced that it was abolishing the Soviet-era constitution and restoring the 1921 Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Georgia. Many Abkhaz interpreted this as an abolition of their autonomous status, although the 1921 constitution contained a provision for the region's autonomy,[51] on 23 July 1992, the Abkhaz faction in the republic's Supreme Council declared effective independence from Georgia, although the session was boycotted by ethnic Georgian deputies and the gesture went unrecognised by any other country. The Abkhaz leadership launched a campaign of ousting Georgian officials from their offices, a process which was accompanied by violence; in the meantime, the Abkhaz leader Vladislav Ardzinba intensified his ties with hard-line Russian politicians and military elite and declared he was ready for a war with Georgia.[52]

In August 1992, the Georgian government accused Gamsakhurdia's supporters of kidnapping Georgia's Interior Minister and holding him captive in Abkhazia, the Georgian government dispatched 3,000 soldiers to the region, ostensibly to restore order. The Abkhaz were relatively unarmed at this time and the Georgian troops were able to march into Sukhumi with relatively little resistance[53] and subsequently engaged in ethnically based pillage, looting, assault, and murder,[54] the Abkhaz units were forced to retreat to Gudauta and Tkvarcheli.

The Abkhaz military defeat was met with a hostile response by the self-styled Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus, an umbrella group uniting a number of movements in the North Caucasus, including elements of Circassians, Abazins, Chechens, Cossacks, Ossetians and hundreds of volunteer paramilitaries and mercenaries from Russia, including the then-little-known Shamil Basayev, later a leader of the anti-Moscow Chechen secessionists. They sided with the Abkhaz separatists to fight against the Georgian government; in the case of Basayev, it has been suggested that when he and the members of his battalion came to Abkhazia, they received training by the Russian Army (though others dispute this), presenting another possible motive.[55] In September, the Abkhaz and Russian paramilitaries mounted a major offensive against Gagra after breaking a cease-fire, which drove the Georgian forces out of large swathes of the republic. Shevardnadze's government accused Russia of giving covert military support to the rebels with the aim of "detaching from Georgia its native territory and the Georgia-Russian frontier land". 1992 ended with the rebels in control of much of Abkhazia northwest of Sukhumi.

The conflict was in stalemate until July 1993, when Abkhaz separatist militias launched an abortive attack on Georgian-held Sukhumi, they surrounded and heavily shelled the capital, where Shevardnadze was trapped. The warring sides agreed to a Russian-brokered truce in Sochi at the end of July. But the ceasefire broke down again on 16 September 1993. Abkhaz forces, with armed support from outside Abkhazia, launched attacks on Sukhumi and Ochamchira. Notwithstanding UN Security Council's call for the immediate cessation of hostilities and its condemnation of the violation of the ceasefire by the Abkhaz side, fighting continued,[56] after ten days of heavy fighting, Sukhumi was taken by Abkhazian forces on 27 September 1993. Shevardnadze narrowly escaped death, after vowing to stay in the city no matter what, he was forced to flee when separatist snipers fired on the hotel where he was staying. Abkhaz, North Caucasian militants, and their allies committed numerous atrocities[57] against the city's remaining ethnic Georgians, in what has been dubbed the Sukhumi Massacre, the mass killings and destruction continued for two weeks, leaving thousands dead and missing.

The Abkhaz forces quickly overran the rest of Abkhazia as the Georgian government faced a second threat: an uprising by the supporters of the deposed Zviad Gamsakhurdia in the region of Mingrelia (Samegrelo). Only a small region of eastern Abkhazia, the upper Kodori gorge, remained under Georgian control (until 2008).

2005 commemoration of the ethnic cleansing in Abkhazia, held on its 12th anniversary in Tbilisi.

Prior to the 1992 War, Georgians made up nearly half of Abkhazia's population, while less than one-fifth of the population was Abkhaz,[61] as the war progressed, confronted with hundreds of thousands of ethnic Georgians who were unwilling to leave their homes, the Abkhaz separatists implemented the process of ethnic cleansing in order to expel and eliminate the Georgian ethnic population in Abkhazia.[62][63] The exact number of those killed during the ethnic cleansing is disputed, however, it ranges from 8,000 to 10,000 people, not including the civilians who were killed in 1998 during the separatist onslaught on Gali region.[64] Roughly up to 250,000 ethnic Georgians were expelled from their homes. Slightly over 200,000 Georgians remain displaced in Georgia proper.[65]

The campaign of ethnic cleansing also included Russians, Armenians, Greeks, moderate Abkhaz and other minor ethnic groups living in Abkhazia. More than 20,000 houses owned by ethnic Georgians were destroyed. Hundreds of schools, kindergartens, churches, hospitals, historical monuments were pillaged and destroyed.[66] Following the process of ethnic cleansing and mass expulsion, the population of Abkhazia has been reduced to 216,000, from 525,000 in 1989.[67]

Of about 250,000 Georgian refugees, some 60,000 Georgian refugees subsequently returned to Abkhazia's Gali District between 1994 and 1998, but tens of thousands were displaced again when fighting resumed in the Gali District in 1998. Nevertheless, between 40,000 and 60,000 refugees have returned to the Gali District since 1998, including persons commuting daily across the ceasefire line and those migrating seasonally in accordance with agricultural cycles,[68] the human rights situation remained precarious for a while in the Georgian-populated areas of the Gali District. The United Nations and other international organisations have been fruitlessly urging the Abkhaz de facto authorities "to refrain from adopting measures incompatible with the right to return and with international human rights standards, such as discriminatory legislation... [and] to cooperate in the establishment of a permanent international human rights office in Gali and to admit United Nations civilian police without further delay."[69] Key officials of the Gali District are virtually all ethnic Abkhaz, though their support staff are ethnic Georgian.[70]

Presidential elections were held in Abkhazia on 3 October 2004. Russia supported Raul Khadjimba, the prime minister backed by the ailing outgoing separatist President Vladislav Ardzinba.[71] Posters of Russia's President Vladimir Putin together with Khadjimba, who, like Putin, had worked as a KGB official, were everywhere in Sukhumi.[72] Deputies of Russia's parliament and Russian singers, led by Joseph Cobsohn, a State Duma deputy and a popular singer, came to Abkhazia, campaigning for Khadjimba.[73]

However Raul Khadjimba lost the elections to Sergei Bagapsh, the tense situation in the republic led to the cancellation of the election results by the Supreme Court. After that, a deal was struck between former rivals to run jointly, with Bagapsh as a presidential candidate and Khadjimba as a vice presidential candidate, they received more than 90% of the votes in the new election.[74]

In July 2006, Georgian forces launched a successful police operation against the rebelled administrator of the Georgian-populated Kodori Gorge, Emzar Kvitsiani. Kvitsiani had been appointed by the previous president of Georgia Edvard Shevardnadze and refused to recognise the authority of president Mikheil Saakashvili, who succeeded Shevardnadze after the Rose Revolution, although Kvitsiani escaped capture by Georgian police, the Kodori Gorge was brought back under the control of the central government in Tbilisi.[citation needed]

Sporadic acts of violence continued throughout the postwar years, despite the peacekeeping status of the Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia, Georgian officials routinely claimed that Russian peacekeepers were inciting violence by supplying Abkhaz rebels with arms and financial support. Russian support of Abkhazia became pronounced when the Russian ruble became the de facto currency and Russia began issuing passports to the population of Abkhazia.[75] Georgia has also accused Russia of violating its airspace by sending helicopters to attack Georgian-controlled towns in the Kodori Gorge. In April 2008, a Russian MiG – prohibited from Georgian airspace, including Abkhazia – shot down a Georgian UAV.[76][77]

On 9 August 2008, Abkhazian forces fired on Georgian forces in Kodori Gorge, this coincided with the 2008 South Ossetia war where Russia decided to support the Ossetian separatists who had been attacked by Georgia.[78][79] The conflict escalated into a full-scale war between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Georgia, on 10 August 2008, an estimated 9,000 Russian soldiers entered Abkhazia ostensibly to reinforce the Russian peacekeepers in the republic. About 1,000 Abkhazian soldiers moved to expel the residual Georgian forces within Abkhazia in the Upper Kodori Gorge.[80] By 12 August the Georgian forces and civilians had evacuated the last part of Abkhazia under Georgian government control. Russia recognised the independence of Abkhazia on 26 August 2008,[81][82] this was followed by the annulment of the 1994 ceasefire agreement and the termination of UN and OSCE monitoring missions.[83][84] On 28 August 2008, the Parliament of Georgia passed a resolution declaring Abkhazia a Russian-occupied territory.[85][86]

Since independence was recognised by Russia, a series of controversial agreements were made between the Abkhazian government and the Russian Federation that leased or sold a number of key state assets and relinquished control over the borders; in May 2009 several opposition parties and war veteran groups protested against these deals complaining that they undermined state sovereignty and risked exchanging one colonial power (Georgia) for another (Russia).[87] The Vice President, Raul Khadjimba, resigned on 28 May saying he agreed with the criticism the opposition had made.[88] Subsequently, a conference of opposition parties nominated Raul Khadjimba as their candidate in the December 2009 Abkhazian presidential election won by Sergei Bagapsh.

In the spring of 2014, the opposition submitted an ultimatum to President Aleksandr Ankvab to dismiss the government and make radical reforms,[89] on 27 May 2014, in the centre of Sukhumi, 10,000 supporters of the Abkhaz opposition gathered for a mass demonstration.[90] On the same day, Ankvab's headquarters in Sukhumi was stormed by opposition groups led by Raul Khadjimba, forcing him into flight to Gudauta,[91] the opposition claimed that the protests were sparked by poverty, but the main point of contention was President Ankvab's liberal policy towards ethnic Georgians in the Gali region. The opposition said these policies could endanger Abkhazia's ethnic Abkhazian identity.[89]

After Ankvab fled the capital, on 31 May, the People's Assembly of Abkhazia appointed parliamentary speaker Valery Bganba as acting president, declaring Ankvab unable to serve, it also decided to hold an early presidential election on 24 August 2014.[92] Ankvab soon declared his formal resignation, although he accused his opponents of acting immorally and violating the constitution.[93] Khajimba was later elected president, taking office in September 2014.[94]

In November 2014, Vladimir Putin moved to formalise the Abkhazian military's relationship as part of the Russian armed forces, signing a treaty with Khajimba,[95][96] the Georgian government denounced the agreement as "a step towards annexation".[97]

A majority of sovereign states recognise Abkhazia as an integral part of Georgia and support its territorial integrity according to the principles of international law, although Belarus has expressed sympathy toward the recognition of Abkhazia,[106][107] some have officially noted Abkhazia as under occupation by the Russian military.[108][109][110] The United Nations has been urging both sides to settle the dispute through diplomatic dialogue and ratifying the final status of Abkhazia in the Georgian constitution.[57][111] However, the Abkhaz de facto government considers Abkhazia a sovereign country even if it is recognised by few other countries; in early 2000, then-UN Special Representative of the Secretary General Dieter Boden and the Group of Friends of Georgia, consisting of the representatives of Russia, the United States, Britain, France, and Germany, drafted and informally presented a document to the parties outlining a possible distribution of competencies between the Abkhaz and Georgian authorities, based on core respect for Georgian territorial integrity. The Abkhaz side, however, has never accepted the paper as a basis for negotiations.[112] Eventually, Russia also withdrew its approval of the document;[113] in 2005 and 2008, the Georgian government offered Abkhazia a high degree of autonomy and possible federal structure within the borders and jurisdiction of Georgia.

On 18 October 2006, the People's Assembly of Abkhazia passed a resolution, calling upon Russia, international organisations and the rest of the international community to recognise Abkhaz independence on the basis that Abkhazia possesses all the properties of an independent state,[114] the United Nations has reaffirmed "the commitment of all Member States to the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Georgia within its internationally recognised borders" and outlined the basic principles of conflict resolution which call for immediate return of all displaced persons and for non-resumption of hostilities.[115]

Georgia accuses the Abkhaz secessionists of having conducted a deliberate campaign of ethnic cleansing of up to 250,000 Georgians, a claim supported by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE; Budapest, Lisbon and Istanbul declaration).[116] The UN Security Council has avoided the use of the term "ethnic cleansing" but has affirmed "the unacceptability of the demographic changes resulting from the conflict",[117] on 15 May 2008, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a non-binding resolution recognising the right of all refugees (including victims of reported "ethnic cleansing") to return to Abkhazia and to retain or regain their property rights there. It "regretted" the attempts to alter pre-war demographic composition and called for the "rapid development of a timetable to ensure the prompt voluntary return of all refugees and internally displaced persons to their homes."[118]

On 28 March 2008, the President of GeorgiaMikheil Saakashvili unveiled his government's new proposals to Abkhazia: the broadest possible autonomy within the framework of a Georgian state, a joint free economic zone, representation in the central authorities including the post of vice-president with the right to veto Abkhaz-related decisions.[119] The Abkhaz leader Sergei Bagapsh rejected these new initiatives as "propaganda", leading to Georgia's complaints that this scepticism was "triggered by Russia, rather than by real mood of the Abkhaz people."[120]

The Russian embassy in Sukhumi

On 3 July 2008, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly passed a resolution at its annual session in Astana, expressing concern over Russia’s recent moves in breakaway Abkhazia, the resolution calls on the Russian authorities to refrain from maintaining ties with the breakaway regions "in any manner that would constitute a challenge to the sovereignty of Georgia" and also urges Russia "to abide by OSCE standards and generally accepted international norms with respect to the threat or use of force to resolve conflicts in relations with other participating States."[121]

On 9 July 2012, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly passed a resolution at its annual session in Monaco, underlining Georgia’s territorial integrity and referring to breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia as "occupied territories", the resolution "urges the Government and the Parliament of the Russian Federation, as well as the de facto authorities of Abkhazia, Georgia and South Ossetia, Georgia, to allow the European Union Monitoring Mission unimpeded access to the occupied territories." It also says that the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly is "concerned about the humanitarian situation of the displaced persons both in Georgia and in the occupied territories of Abkhazia, Georgia and South Ossetia, Georgia, as well as the denial of the right of return to their places of living." The Assembly is the parliamentary dimension of the OSCE with 320 lawmakers from the organisation’s 57 participating states, including Russia.[122]

In late October 2008 President Saakashvili signed into law legislation on the occupied territories passed by the Georgian Parliament, the law covers the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali (territories of former South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast).[123][124][125] The law spells out restrictions on free movement and economic activity in the territories; in particular, according to the law, foreign citizens should enter the two breakaway regions only through Georgia proper. Entry into Abkhazia should be carried out from the Zugdidi District and into South Ossetia from the Gori District, the major road leading to South Ossetia from the rest of Georgia passes through the Gori District.

The legislation, however, also lists "special" cases in which entry into the breakaway regions will not be regarded as illegal, it stipulates that a special permit on entry into the breakaway regions can be issued if the trip there "serves Georgia’s state interests; peaceful resolution of the conflict; de-occupation or humanitarian purposes." The law also bans any type of economic activity – entrepreneurial or non-entrepreneurial, if such activities require permits, licenses or registration in accordance with Georgian legislation. It also bans air, sea and railway communications and international transit via the regions, mineral exploration and money transfers, the provision covering economic activities is retroactive, going back to 1990.

The law says that the Russian Federation – the state which has carried out military occupation – is fully responsible for the violation of human rights in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Russian Federation, according to the document, is also responsible for compensation of material and moral damage inflicted on Georgian citizens, stateless persons and foreign citizens, who are in Georgia and enter the occupied territories with appropriate permits. The law also says that de facto state agencies and officials operating in the occupied territories are regarded by Georgia as illegal, the law will remain in force until "the full restoration of Georgian jurisdiction" over the breakaway regions is realised.

Currently Georgia considers all residents of Abkhazia its citizens, while they see themselves as Abkhaz citizens.[65]

In the summer of 2011 the Parliament of Georgia adopted a package of legislative amendments providing for the issuance of neutral identification and travel documents to residents of Abkhazia and the former South Ossetian autonomous province of Georgia, the document allows travelling abroad as well as enjoying social benefits existing in Georgia. The new neutral identification and travel documents were called "neutral passports".[126]

According to Georgian officials, the "neutral passports" lacked any symbols of Georgia and only bore a registration number and an individual number. Moscow argued it was Georgia’s "cunning ploy" because the passports contained Georgia’s code and the Georgian Interior Ministry as the issuing body.

Abkhazia’s Foreign Ministry expressed concerns about some countries recognising the "neutral passports." The ministry also said an increasing number of Abkhazian residents with Russian passports were being denied Schengen visas.[127]

As of May 2013, neutral documents have been recognised by Japan, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, the United States, Bulgaria, Poland, Israel, Estonia and Romania.[126]

According to Russian media, the President of Republic of Abkhazia, Alexander Ankvab threatened international organisations that accepted neutral passports, saying during a meeting with the leadership of the foreign ministry that "international organizations that suggest the so-called neutral passports, will leave Abkhazia."[128]

During the Georgian–Abkhaz conflict, the Russian authorities and military supplied logistical and military aid to the separatist side.[57] Today, Russia still maintains a strong political and military influence over separatist rule in Abkhazia. Russia has also issued passports to the citizens of Abkhazia since 2000 (as Abkhazian passports cannot be used for international travel) and subsequently paid them retirement pensions and other monetary benefits. More than 80% of the Abkhazian population had received Russian passports by 2006, as Russian citizens living abroad, Abkhazians do not pay Russian taxes or serve in the Russian Army.[129][130] About 53,000 Abkhazian passports have been issued as of May 2007.[131]

Moscow, at certain times, hinted that it might recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia when Western countries recognised the independence of Kosovo, suggesting that they had created a precedent. Following Kosovo's declaration of independence, the Russian parliament released a joint statement reading: "Now that the situation in Kosovo has become an international precedent, Russia should take into account the Kosovo scenario... when considering ongoing territorial conflicts."[132] Initially Russia continued to delay recognition of both of these republics. However, on 16 April 2008, the outgoing Russian president Vladimir Putin instructed his government to establish official ties with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, leading to Georgia's condemnation of what it described as an attempt at "de facto annexation"[133] and criticism from the European Union, NATO, and several Western governments.[134]

Later in April 2008, Russia accused Georgia of trying to exploit NATO support in order to control Abkhazia by force and announced it would increase its military presence in the region, pledging to retaliate militarily against Georgia’s efforts, the Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze said Georgia will treat any additional troops in Abkhazia as "aggressors".[135]

Russia has started work on the establishment of a naval base in Ochamchire by dredging the coast to allow the passage of their larger naval vessels,[148] as a response to the Georgian sea blockade of Abkhazia, in which the Georgian coast guard had been detaining ships heading to and from Abkhazia, Russia began patrolling the Black Sea to protect Abkhazia-transiting ships and detaining Georgian ships navigating Abkhazian waters.[149]

The extent of Russian influence in Abkhazia has caused some locals to say Abkhazia is under full Russian control, but they still prefer Russian influence over Georgian.[150][151][152][153]

The UN has played various roles during the conflict and peace process: a military role through its observer mission (UNOMIG); dual diplomatic roles through the Security Council and the appointment of a Special Envoy, succeeded by a Special Representative to the Secretary-General; a humanitarian role (UNHCR and UNOCHA); a development role (UNDP); a human rights role (UNHCHR); and a low-key capacity and confidence-building role (UNV). The UN’s position has been that there will be no forcible change in international borders. Any settlement must be freely negotiated and based on autonomy for Abkhazia legitimised by referendum under international observation once the multiethnic population has returned.[154] According to Western interpretations the intervention did not contravene international law since Georgia, as a sovereign state, had the right to secure order on its territory and protect its territorial integrity.[citation needed]

The OSCE has increasingly engaged in dialogue with officials and civil society representatives in Abkhazia, especially from non-governmental organisations (NGO)s and the media, regarding human dimension standards in the region and is considering a presence in Gali. The OSCE expressed concern and condemnation over ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia during the 1994 Budapest Summit Decision[155] and later at the Lisbon Summit Declaration in 1996.[156]

The USA rejects the unilateral secession of Abkhazia and urges its integration into Georgia as an autonomous unit; in 1998 the USA announced its readiness to allocate up to $15 million for rehabilitation of infrastructure in the Gali region if substantial progress is made in the peace process. USAID has already funded some humanitarian initiatives for Abkhazia. The USA has in recent years significantly increased its military support to the Georgian armed forces but has stated that it would not condone any moves towards peace enforcement in Abkhazia.[citation needed]

On 22 August 2006, Senator Richard Lugar, then visiting Georgia's capital Tbilisi, joined Georgian politicians in criticism of the Russian peacekeeping mission, stating that "the U.S. administration supports the Georgian government’s insistence on the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers from the conflict zones in Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali district".[157]

On 13 October 2006, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution, based on a Group of Friends of the Secretary-General draft, extending the UNOMIG mission until 15 April 2007. Acknowledging that the "new and tense situation" resulted, at least in part, from the Georgian special forces' operation in the upper Kodori Valley, the resolution urged the country to ensure that no troops unauthorised by the Moscow ceasefire agreement were present in that area, it urged the leadership of the Abkhaz side to address seriously the need for a dignified, secure return of refugees and internally displaced persons and to reassure the local population in the Gali district that their residency rights and identity will be respected. The Georgian side is "once again urged to address seriously legitimate Abkhaz security concerns, to avoid steps that could be seen as threatening and to refrain from militant rhetoric and provocative actions, especially in upper Kodori Valley."[citation needed]

Calling on both parties to follow up on dialogue initiatives, it further urged them to comply fully with all previous agreements regarding non-violence and confidence-building, in particular those concerning the separation of forces. Regarding the disputed role of the peacekeepers from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Council stressed the importance of close, effective cooperation between UNOMIG and that force and looked to all sides to continue to extend the necessary cooperation to them, at the same time, the document reaffirmed the "commitment of all Member States to the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Georgia within its internationally recognised borders."[160]

The HALO Trust, an international non-profit organisation that specialises in the removal of the debris of war, has been active in Abkhazia since 1999 and has completed the removal of landmines in Sukhumi and Gali districts, it declared Abkhazia "mine free" in 2011.[161]

The main NGO working in Abkhazia is the France-based international NGO Première-Urgence (PU):[162] PU has been implementing rehabilitation and economical revival programmes to support the vulnerable populations affected by the frozen conflict for almost 10 years.[citation needed]

Abkhazia covers an area of about 8,660 km2 (3,344 sq mi) at the western end of Georgia.[4][174][175] The Caucasus Mountains to the north and the northeast divide Abkhazia and the Russian Federation. To the east and southeast, Abkhazia is bounded by the Georgian region of Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti; and on the south and southwest by the Black Sea.

Abkhazia is diverse geographically with lowlands stretching to the extremely mountainous north, the Greater Caucasus Mountain Range runs along the region's northern border, with its spurs – the Gagra, Bzyb and Kodori ranges – dividing the area into a number of deep, well-watered valleys. The highest peaks of Abkhazia are in the northeast and east and several exceed 4,000 meters (13,123 ft) above sea level. Abkhazia's landscape ranges from coastal forests and citrus plantations to permanent snows and glaciers in the north of the region, although Abkhazia's complex topographic setting has spared most of the territory from significant human development, its cultivated fertile lands produce tea, tobacco, wine and fruits, a mainstay of the local agricultural sector.

Abkhazia is richly irrigated by small rivers originating in the Caucasus Mountains. Chief of these are: Kodori, Bzyb, Ghalidzga, and Gumista. The Psou River separates the region from Russia, and the Inguri serves as a boundary between Abkhazia and Georgia proper. There are several periglacial and crater lakes in mountainous Abkhazia. Lake Ritsa is the most important of them.

The world's deepest known cave, Krubera (Voronja) Cave ("The Crows' Cave"), is located in Abkhazia's western Caucasus mountains, the latest survey (as of September 2006) has measured the vertical extent of this cave system as 2,158 meters (7,080 ft) between its highest and lowest explored points.[176]

Because of Abkhazia's proximity to the Black Sea and the shield of the Caucasus Mountains, the region's climate is very mild, the coastal areas of the republic have a subtropical climate, where the average annual temperature in most regions is around 15 °C (59 °F), and the average January temperature remains above freezing.[4] The climate at higher elevations varies from maritime mountainous to cold and summerless. Also, due to its position on the windward slopes of the Caucasus, Abkhazia receives high amounts of precipitation,[4] though humidity decreases further inland, the annual precipitation vacillates from 1,200–1,400 mm (47.2–55.1 in)[4] along the coast 1,700–3,500 mm (66.9–137.8 in) in the higher mountainous areas. The mountains of Abkhazia receive significant amounts of snow.

The lowland regions used to be covered by swaths of oak, beech, and hornbeam, which have since been cleared.[4]

There are two main entrances into Abkhazia, the southern entrance is at the Inguri bridge, a short distance from the city of Zugdidi. The northern entrance ("Psou") is in the town of Leselidze. Owing to the situation with a recognition controversy, many foreign governments advise their citizens against travelling to Abkhazia.[177] According to President Raul Khajimba, over the summer of 2015, thousands of tourists visited Abkhazia.[178]

Legislative powers are vested in the People's Assembly, which consists of 35 elected members, the last parliamentary elections were held on 10/24 March 2012. Ethnicities other than Abkhaz (Armenians, Russians and Georgians) are claimed to be under-represented in the Assembly.[70]

Most refugees from the 1992–1993 war (mainly ethnic Georgians) have not been able to return and have thus been excluded from the political process.[181]

Abkhazian officials have stated that they have given the Russian Federation the responsibility of representing their interests abroad.[182]

According to a 2010 study published by the University of Colorado Boulder, the vast majority of Abkhazia's population supports independence, while a smaller number is in favour of joining the Russian Federation. Support for a reunification with Georgia is very low.[183] Even among ethnic Georgians, nearly 50% prefer Abkhazia to remain an independent state and less than 20% of them believe returning to Georgia is necessary, as most of them have adjusted to the current situation, among ethnic Abkhaz, explicit support for reunification with Georgia is around 1%; a similar figure can be found among ethnic Russians and Armenians as well.[184]

The Government of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia is the government in exile that Georgia recognises as the legal government of Abkhazia, this pro-Georgian government maintained a foothold on Abkhazian territory, in the upper Kodori Valley from July 2006 until it was forced out by fighting in August 2008. This government is also partly responsible for the affairs of some 250,000 IDPs, forced to leave Abkhazia following the War in Abkhazia and ethnic cleansing that followed.[185][186] The current Head of the Government is Vakhtang Kolbaia.

During the War in Abkhazia, the Government of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia (at the time the Georgian faction of the "Council of Ministers of Abkhazia") left Abkhazia after the Abkhaz separatist forces took control of the region’s capital Sukhumi and relocated to Georgia’s capital Tbilisi where it operated as the Government of Abkhazia in exile for almost 13 years. During this period, the Government of Abkhazia in exile, led by Tamaz Nadareishvili, was known for a hard-line stance towards the Abkhaz problem and frequently voiced their opinion that the solution to the conflict can be attained only through Georgia's military response to secessionism.[citation needed] Later, Nadareishvili's administration was implicated in some internal controversies and had not taken an active part in the politics of Abkhazia[citation needed] until a new chairman, Irakli Alasania, was appointed by President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, his envoy in the peace talks over Abkhazia.

The Abkhazian Armed Forces are the military of the Republic of Abkhazia, the basis of the Abkhazian armed forces was formed by the ethnically Abkhaz National Guard formed early in 1992. Most of the weapons come from the former Russian airborne division base in Gudauta,[187][188] the Abkhazian military is primarily a ground force but includes small sea and air units. Russia has at present around 1,600 troops stationed in Abkhazia.[189]

The Abkhazian Armed Forces are composed of:

The Abkhazian Land Forces with a permanent force of around 5,000, but with reservists and paramilitary personnel this may increase to up to 50,000 in times of military conflict. The exact numbers and the type of equipment used remain unverifiable.

The economy of Abkhazia is heavily integrated with Russia and uses the Russian ruble as its currency. Abkhazia has experienced a modest economic upswing since the 2008 South Ossetia war and Russia's subsequent recognition of Abkhazia's independence. About half of Abkhazia's state budget is financed with aid money from Russia.[191]

Tourism is a key industry and, according to Abkhazia's authorities, almost a million tourists (mainly from Russia) came to Abkhazia in 2007.[192] Abkhazia also enjoys fertile lands and an abundance of agricultural products, including tea, tobacco, wine and fruits (especially tangerines and hazelnuts). Electricity is largely supplied by the Inguri hydroelectric power station located on the Inguri River between Abkhazia and Georgia (proper) and operated jointly by both parties.

In the first half of 2012, the principal trading partners of Abkhazia were Russia (64%) and Turkey (18%),[193] the CIS economic sanctions imposed on Abkhazia in 1996 are still formally in force, but Russia announced on 6 March 2008 that it would no longer participate in them, declaring them "outdated, impeding the socio-economic development of the region, and causing unjustified hardship for the people of Abkhazia". Russia also called on other CIS members to undertake similar steps,[194] but met with protests from Tbilisi and lack of support from the other CIS countries.[195]

Despite the controversial status of the territory and its damaged infrastructure, tourism in Abkhazia grew following the Russian recognition of Abkhazian independence in 2008 due to the arrival of Russian tourists; in 2009 the number of Russian tourists in Abkhazia increased by 20% and the total number of Russian tourists reached 1 million.[196][197] Low prices and an absence of any visa requirements attracts Russian tourists especially those who cannot afford vacations in Turkey, Egypt, Bulgaria and other popular Russian tourist destinations. After the tourist boom many Russian businesses began to invest money in Abkhazian tourist infrastructure, with the main highway of the country being rebuilt in 2014 many damaged hotels in Gagra are either being restored or demolished. In 2014, 1.16 million Russian tourists visited Abkhazia.[198]

According to the last census in 2011 Abkhazia has 240,705 inhabitants.[199]

The exact size of Abkhazia's population was unclear. According to the census carried out in 2003 it measured 215,972 people,[200] but this is contested by Georgian authorities, the Department of Statistics of Georgia estimated Abkhazia's population to be approximately 179,000 in 2003, and 178,000 in 2005 (the last year when such estimates were published in Georgia).[201]Encyclopædia Britannica estimates the population in 2007 at 180,000[202] and the International Crisis Group estimates Abkhazia's total population in 2006 to be between 157,000 and 190,000 (or between 180,000 and 220,000 as estimated by UNDP in 1998).[203]

Greeks constituted a significant minority in the area in the early 1920s (50,000), and remained a major ethnic component until 1945 when they were deported to Central Asia.[205] Under the Soviet Union, the Russian, Armenian, and Georgian populations grew faster than the Abkhaz population, due to large-scale enforced migration, especially under the rule of Joseph Stalin and Lavrenty Beria.[43] Russians moved into Abkhazia in great numbers.

At the time of the 1989 census, Abkhazia's Georgian population numbered 239,872 forming around 45.7% of the population,[200][206] and the Armenian population numbered 77,000.[citation needed] Due to ethnic cleansing and displacement due to people fleeing the 1992-1993 war, much of the Georgian population and to a lesser extent the Russian and Armenian populations had greatly diminished;[202] in 2003 Armenians formed the second-largest minority group in Abkhazia (closely matching the Georgians), numbering 44,869.[200] By the time of the 2011 census, Georgians formed the second-largest minority group with a number of 46,455,[206] despite the official numbers, unofficial estimates believe that the Abkhaz and Armenian communities are roughly equal in number [207]

In the wake of the Syrian Civil War Abkhazia granted refugee status to a few hundred Syrians with Abkhaz, Abazin and Circassian ancestry.[207] Facing a growing Armenian community, this move has been linked with the wish of the ruling Abkhaz —who have often been in the minority on their territory— to tilt the demographic balance in favour of the titular nation.[207]

Thousands of Abkhaz, known as muhajirun, fled Abkhazia for the Ottoman Empire in the mid-19th century after resisting the Russian conquest of the Caucasus. Today, Turkey is home to the world's largest Abkhaz diaspora community. Size estimates vary – Diaspora leaders say 1 million people; Abkhaz estimates range from 150,000 to 500,000.[208][209]

According to the constitutions of both Abkhazia and Georgia, the adherents of all religions (as well as atheists) have equal rights before the law.[214]

According to a survey held in 2003, 60% of respondents identified themselves as Christian, 16% as Muslim, 8% as atheist or irreligious, 8% as adhering to the traditional Abkhazian religion or as Pagan, 2% as follower of other religions and 6% as undecided.[210]

The official language of the Republic of Abkhazia shall be the Abkhazian language, the Russian language, equally with the Abkhazian language, shall be recognized as a language of State and other institutions. The State shall guarantee the right to freely use the mother language for all the ethnic groups residing in Abkhazia.[215]

The languages spoken in Abkhazia are Abkhaz, Russian, Mingrelian, Svan, Armenian, and Greek.[216] The Autonomous Republic passed a law in 2007 defining the Abkhaz language as the only state language of Abkhazia,[217] as such, Abkhaz is the required language legislative and executive council debates (with translation from and to Russian) and at least half of the text of all magazines and newspapers must be in Abkhaz.[217]

Despite the official status of Abkhaz, the dominance of other languages within Abkhazia, especially Russian, is so great that experts as recently as 2004 called it an "endangered language",[218] during the Soviet era, language instruction would begin in schools in Abkhaz, only to switch to Russian for the majority of required schooling.[218] The government of the Republic is attempting to institute Abkhaz-only primary education but there has been limited success due to a lack of facilities and educational materials.[217] Even in Georgian-speaking areas of the Republic, ending schooling in that language has resulted in teachers switching to Russian-language materials instead of Abkhaz-language teaching.[219]

After the breakup of Soviet Union, many Abkhazians kept their Soviet passports, even after a decade, and used them to eventually apply for Russian citizenship.[220]

Before 2002, Russian law allowed residents of former Soviet Union to apply for citizenship if they had not become citizens of their newly independent states, the procedure was extremely complex. The new citizenship law of Russia adopted on 31 May 2002 introduced a simplified procedure of citizenship acquisition for former citizens of the Soviet Union regardless of their place of residence; in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the application process was simplified even further, and people could apply even without leaving their homes. Russian nationalist non-governmental organisations with close ties to Russian officialdom simply took their papers to a nearby Russian city for processing.[221]

Abkhazians began mass acquisition of Russian passports in 2002, it is reported that the public organisation the Congress of Russian Communities of Abkhazia started collecting Abkhazians’ Soviet-era travel documents. It then sent them to a consular department specially set up by Russian Foreign Ministry officials in the city of Sochi, after they were checked, Abkhazian applicants were granted Russian citizenship. By 25 June 2002, an estimated 150,000 people in Abkhazia had acquired the new passports, joining 50,000 who already possessed Russian citizenship, the Sukhum authorities, although officially not involved in the registration for Russian nationality process, openly encouraged it. Government officials said privately that President Putin’s administration agreed with the passport acquisition during Abkhazia’s prime minister Djergenia's visit to Moscow in May 2002.[220]

The "passportisation" caused outrage in Tbilisi, worsening its already shaky relations with Russia, the Georgian Foreign Ministry issued a statement insisting that Abkhazians were citizens of Georgia and calling the passport allocation an "unprecedented illegal campaign". President Eduard Shevardnadze said that he would be asking his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, for an explanation, the speaker of parliament Nino Burjanadze said that she would raise the matter at the forthcoming OSCE parliamentary assembly.[220]

1 February 2011 was the last day in the post-Soviet era when a passport of USSR was valid for crossing the Russian-Abkhaz border. According to the staff of Abkhazia's passport and visa service, there were about two to three thousand mostly elderly people left with Soviet passports who had no chance of acquiring new documents, these people were not able to get Russian citizenship. But they can first get an internal Abkhaz passport and then a travelling passport to visit Russia.[222]

In 2005, citing the need to integrate ethnic Georgian residents of eastern districts of Abkhazia, the then-leadership of Abkhazia showed signs of a softening stance towards granting of citizenship to the residents of Gali, Ochamchire and Tkvarcheli districts.[223]

According to the Abkhazian law on citizenship, ethnic Abkhazians, regardless of place of residence, can become Abkhaz citizens, those who are not ethnic Abkhazians are eligible for citizenship if they lived in Abkhazia for at least five years prior to adoption of act of independence in October, 1999. This provision aimed at creating a legal hurdle in obtaining Abkhaz passports for those ethnic Georgians who fled Abkhazia as a result of 1992-1993 armed conflict and who then returned to the Gali district. Abkhazian legislation forbids citizens of Abkhazia from holding dual citizenship with any other state apart from Russia.[224]

Ethnic Georgians who have returned to the Gali district and want to obtain Abkhaz passports, according to Abkhazian law, should undergo lengthy procedures which also include a requirement to submit documented proof that they renounced their Georgian citizenship.[224] President Bagapsh was inclined to regard Georgians in Gali as "Georgianised Abkhazians." According to Bagapsh, these were actually ethnic Abkhaz people who were "Georgianised" during the long process of the Georgianisation of Abkhazia that culminated during the rule of Joseph Stalin and Lavrenti Beria. So in his official speeches, Bagapsh often added the Gali Georgians to population estimates of the Abkhaz, disregarding the fact that they still thought of themselves as ethnic Georgians rather than Abkhaz.[225]

In early 2013 the process of passportisation of ethnic Georgians came under the scrutiny of Abkhaz opposition groups who turned this issue into one of the central topics of the breakaway region’s internal politics, and issuing of passports was suspended in May. Opposition claimed that "massive" passportisation involving granting citizenship to ethnic Georgians in eastern districts was fraught with risk of "losing sovereignty and territorial integrity." According to Apsnipress, Stanislav Lakoba, secretary of Abkhaz security council, said that "We are facing the process of the total Georgianization of Abkhazia."[224]

Pressures have been placed upon teachers in areas of Abkhazia which retain large Georgian populations to abandon the use of the Georgian language in education and adopt Russian textbooks.[226][227][228]

On 18 September 2013, the Parliament of Republic of Abkhazia adopted a resolution instructing the prosecutor’s office to carry out a "sweeping" probe into passport offices of the interior ministry and where wrongdoings were found in the distribution of passports to refer those violations to the Ministry of Internal Affairs for "annulment of illegally issued passports." Abkhaz officials announced that a significant number of residents of Gali, Ochamchire and Tkvarcheli districts received Abkhaz passports while at the same time retaining their Georgian citizenship, which constituted a "violation of the law on Abkhaz citizenship". According to the Abkhaz officials, more than 26,000 passports were distributed in Gali, Tkvarcheli and Ochamchire districts, including about 23,000 of which were given out since Russian recognition of Abkhazia's independence in August, 2008, these political debates have caused concerns in the ethnic Georgian population of Abkhazia, who reside mainly in Gali district, that they would be stripped of Abkhazian citizenship and thus forced to leave Abkhazia again.[223]

In October 2013 Alexander Ankvab signed a document ordering the firing Stanislav Lakoba, the document did not state any reason for the decision but Lakoba saw it as related to his political position on granting citizenship to Georgians living in Gali. Lakoba claimed that, according to data from the Abkhaz Security Council, 129 local people in Gali fought against Abkhazia. Local political parties and the coordination council of civil organisations expressed concern about Lakoba’s dismissal, they claimed that, by dismissing him, the president "made an illegal process legal" – giving Abkhazian passports to Georgian citizens.[229]

The written Abkhaz literature appeared relatively recently, in the beginning of the 20th century. However, Abkhaz share the Nart sagas, a series of tales about mythical heroes, with other Caucasian peoples, the Abkhaz alphabet was created in the 19th century. The first newspaper in Abkhaz, called Abkhazia and edited by Dmitry Gulia, appeared in 1917.[citation needed]

Football remains the most popular sport in Abkhazia. Other popular sports include basketball, boxing and wrestling.[citation needed] National Basketball Team of Abkhazia played its first game with the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Basketball team on 27 May 2015, which Abkhaz team won by 76-59. [230] Abkhaz basketball team "Apsny" also plays in the Russian Basketball League's Third-Tier in Krasnodar Krai.

^Ozgan, Konstantin (1998). "Abkhazia: Problems and the Paths to their Resolution". In Ole Høiris, Sefa Martin Yürükel. Contrasts and Solutions in the Caucasus. Aarhus University Press. p. 184. ISBN978-87-7288-708-1. [...] Apsny, which when translated, means 'Land of the Abkhazians [Mortals]' [...] See Chirikba (1991) for the etymology deriving the Abkhazian native ethnonym from the root 'die' in the sense of 'mortal being'. The popular belief that the toponym is etymologisable as 'Land of the Soul' is demonstrated by Chirikba to be no longer tenable.

^1921 Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Georgia: Chapter XI, Articles 107–108 (adopted by the Constituent Assembly of Georgia 21 February 1921): "Abkhasie (district of Soukhoum), ..., which are integral parts of the Georgian Republic, enjoy autonomy in the administration of their affairs. The statute concerning the autonomy of [these] districts ... will be the object of special legislation". Regional Research Centre. Retrieved on 25 November 2008.

1.
Abkhaz language
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Abkhaz /æpˈhɑːz/ is a Northwest Caucasian language most closely related to Abaza. It is spoken mostly by the Abkhaz people and it is the official language of Abkhazia where around 100,000 people speak it. Furthermore, it is spoken by thousands of members of the Abkhazian diaspora in Turkey, Georgias other autonomous republic of Adjara, Syria, Jordan, the Russian census of 2010 reported 6,786 speakers of Abkhaz in Russia. Abkhaz is a Northwest Caucasian language and is related to Adyghe. Grammatically, the two are similar, however, the differences in phonology are substantial and are the main reason for many other linguists preferring to keep the two separate. Most linguists believe that Ubykh is the closest relative to the Abkhaz–Abaza dialect continuum, Abkhaz is spoken primarily in Abkhazia. However, the number of Abkhaz speakers in these countries remains unknown due to a lack of official records. Bzyb or Bzyp, spoken in the Caucasus and in Turkey, Sadz, nowadays spoken only in Turkey, formerly also spoken between the rivers Bzyp and Khosta. The literary Abkhaz language is based on the Abzhywa dialect, Abkhaz has a very large number of consonants, with three-way voiced/voiceless/ejective and palatalized/labialized/plain distinctions. By contrast, the language has only two phonemically distinct vowels—which, however, have several allophones depending on the palatal and/or labial quality of adjacent consonants. Phonemes in green are found in the Bzyp and Sadz dialects of Abkhaz, Abkhaz is typologically classified as an agglutinative language. Like all other Northwest Caucasian languages, Abkhaz has a complex verbal system coupled with a very simple noun system. Viacheslav Chirikba has characterized Abkhaz as a language, as the verb occupies the central place in Abkhaz morphology. Abkhaz is a language that distinguishes just two cases, the nominative and the adverbial. Abkhaz uses the Cyrillic script since 1862, the first alphabet was a 37–character Cyrillic alphabet invented by Baron Peter von Uslar. In 1909 a 55-letter Cyrillic alphabet was used, a 75-letter Latin script devised by a Russian/Georgian linguist Nikolai Marr lasted for 2 years 1926–1928. The earliest extant written records of the Abkhaz language are in the Arabic script, Abkhaz has been used as a literary language for only about 100 years. Both Georgian and Abkhaz law enshrines an official status of the Abkhaz language in Abkhazia, the 1992 law of Georgia, reiterated in the 1995 Constitution, grants Abkhaz the status of second official language in the territory of Abkhazia, along with Georgian

2.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi

3.
Flag of Abkhazia
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Abkhazia is claimed and controlled by the partially recognized Republic of Abkhazia, and functions as a de facto independent Abkhazian state. Georgia, the United Nations and the majority of the worlds governments consider Abkhazia to be part of Georgia, the flag of the Republic of Abkhazia was created in 1991 by V. Gamgia. It was officially adopted on 23 July 1992, the design of the red canton is based on the banner of the medieval Kingdom of Abkhazia. The open right hand means Hello to friends, the seven stars in the canton have since been reinterpreted to correspond to the seven historical regions of the country - Sadzen, Bzyp, Gumaa, Abzhywa, Samurzaqan, Dal-Tsabal and Pskhuy-Aibga. Seven is a sacred to the Abkhaz and the green and white stripes represent the tolerance that allows Christianity. The flag of the SSR Abkhazia was adopted in 1925 when the SSR Abkhazia ratified its constitution and it was used until 1931, when the SSR Abkhazia was transformed into the Abkhaz ASSR with a different flag. This flag of the Abkhaz ASSR was introduced in 1978 and used until the collapse of the Soviet union in 1991. The previous flag used between 1931 and 1978 was identical to the flag of the Georgian SSR, and in 1978 the name of the Abkhaz ASSR was added written in the Abkhaz language and script. Emblem and logo of Abkhazia Coat of arms of the SSR Abkhazia Flag of Abkhazia at FOTW Abkhazia in the Soviet Union at Flags of the World

4.
Emblem and logo of Abkhazia
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The emblem of the Republic of Abkhazia was adopted by the Supreme Soviet of Abkhazia on 23 July 1992, after it declared its secession from Georgia. The emblem of separatist Republic of Abkhazia is a divided vertically into white. On this are placed devices outlined in gold, At the base eight-pointed star, at the centre of the shield is a horseman, flying on the fabulous steed called Arash, and shooting an arrow towards the stars. This scene is from the heroic epic Narts, green symbolizes youth and life, while white symbolizes spirituality. The stars represent the sun, as well as the union of the East and West, the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia has recently been granted arms by the State Council of Heraldry. Coat of arms of the SSR Abkhazia Flag of Abkhazia Flags of Abkhazia, Georgia

5.
Aiaaira
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Aiaaira is the de facto anthem of the partially recognized state of Abkhazia. The lyrics were written by poet Gennady Alamia, and the music composed by Valery Chkadua, the lyrics were written after Abkhazias proclamation of independence in 1992. They used as inspiration the Abkhazian revolutionary song Kiaraz that originated during the short-lived Democratic Republic of Georgia, in 1994, after the war for independence with Georgia, Valery Chkadua composed the anthem at the personal request of the first Abkhazian President Vladislav Ardzinba. Chkadua, who studied under Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitry Shostakovich, included various folk motives in the anthem. Chkadua, who refused royalties for the work, had written the anthem in the winter in a freezing, unheated house, but received housing as a thank you from the president. List of national anthems National Anthem of Abkhazia - The website Abkhazia, Abkhazia anthem and flag on YouTube

6.
Caucasus
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The Caucasus /ˈkɔːkəsəs/ or Caucasia /kɔːˈkeɪʒə/ is a region at the border of Europe and Asia, situated between the Black and the Caspian seas. It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, which contain Europes highest mountain, politically, the Caucasus region is separated between northern and southern parts. The southern parts consist of independent sovereign states, and the parts are under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation. The region is known for its diversity, aside from Indo-European and Turkic languages, the Kartvelian, Northwest Caucasian. Pliny the Elders Natural History derives the name of the Caucasus from Scythian kroy-khasis, German linguist Paul Kretschmer notes that the Latvian word Kruvesis also means ice. According to German philologists Otto Schrader and Alfons A. Nehring, the South Caucasus region and southern Dagestan were the furthest points of Persian expansions, with areas to the north of Caucasus Mountains practically impregnable. The mythological mountain of Qaf, the worlds highest mountain that ancient lore shrouded in mystery, was said to be situated in this region, therefore, the Caucasus might be associated with the legendary mountain. The Ciscaucasus contains the majority of the Greater Caucasus Mountain range. It includes Southwestern Russia and northern parts of Georgia and Azerbaijan, the Transcaucasus is bordered on the north by Russia, on the west by the Black Sea and Turkey, on the east by the Caspian Sea, and on the south by Iran. It includes the Caucasus Mountains and surrounding lowlands, all of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are in South Caucasus. The main Greater Caucasus range is generally perceived to be the line between Asia and Europe. The highest peak in the Caucasus is Mount Elbrus in the western Ciscaucasus in Russia, the Caucasus is one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse regions on Earth. The nation states that comprise the Caucasus today are the post-Soviet states Georgia, Armenia, three territories in the region claim independence but are recognized as such by only a handful or by no independent states, Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Abkhazia and South Ossetia are recognised by the majority of independent states as part of Georgia, the Russian divisions include Krasnodar Krai, Stavropol Krai, and the autonomous republics of Adygea, Karachay–Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Chechnya, and Dagestan. The region has many different languages and language families, there are more than 50 ethnic groups living in the region. Russian is used as a common language, today the peoples of the Northern and Southern Caucasus tend to be either Eastern Orthodox Christians, Oriental Orthodox Christians, or Sunni Muslims. Shia Islam has had many adherents historically in Azerbaijan, located in the part of the region. Located on the peripheries of Turkey, Iran, and Russia, the region has been an arena for political, military, religious, throughout its history, the Caucasus was usually incorporated into the Iranian world

7.
Georgia (country)
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Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. The capital and largest city is Tbilisi, Georgia covers a territory of 69,700 square kilometres, and its 2016 population is about 3.72 million. Georgia is a unitary, semi-presidential republic, with the government elected through a representative democracy, during the classical era, several independent kingdoms became established in what is now Georgia. The kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia adopted Christianity in the early 4th century, a unified Kingdom of Georgia reached the peak of its political and economic strength during the reign of King David IV and Queen Tamar in the 12th and early 13th centuries. Thereafter the kingdom declined and eventually disintegrated under hegemony of various powers, including the Mongols, the Ottoman Empire. Russian rule over Georgia was eventually acknowledged in various treaties with Iran. Since the establishment of the modern Georgian republic in April 1991, post-communist Georgia suffered from civil, the countrys Western orientation soon led to the worsening of relations with Russia, culminating in the brief Russo-Georgian War in August 2008. Georgia is a member of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and it contains two de facto independent regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which gained limited international recognition after the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. Georgia and a part of the international community consider the regions to be part of Georgias sovereign territory under Russian military occupation. Georgia probably stems from the Persian designation of the Georgians – gurğān, in the 11th and 12th centuries adapted via Syriac gurz-ān/gurz-iyān, starting with the Persian word gurğ/gurğān, the word was later adopted in numerous other languages, including Slavic and West European languages. This term itself might have established through the ancient Iranian appellation of the near-Caspian region. The self-designation used by ethnic Georgians is Kartvelebi, the medieval Georgian Chronicles present an eponymous ancestor of the Kartvelians, Kartlos, a great-grandson of Japheth. However, scholars agree that the word is derived from the Karts, the name Sakartvelo consists of two parts. Its root, kartvel-i, specifies an inhabitant of the core central-eastern Georgian region of Kartli, ancient Greeks and Romans referred to early western Georgians as Colchians and eastern Georgians as Iberians. Today the full, official name of the country is Georgia, before the 1995 constitution came into force the countrys name was the Republic of Georgia. The territory of modern-day Georgia was inhabited by Homo erectus since the Paleolithic Era, the proto-Georgian tribes first appear in written history in the 12th century BC. The earliest evidence of wine to date has found in Georgia. In fact, early metallurgy started in Georgia during the 6th millennium BC, the classical period saw the rise of a number of early Georgian states, the principal of which was Colchis in the west and Iberia in the east

8.
Sukhumi
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Sukhumi or Sokhumi is a city on the Black Sea coast. It is the capital of the breakaway Republic of Abkhazia which has controlled it since the 1992-93 war in Abkhazia, sukhumis history can be traced back to the 6th century BC, when it was settled by Greeks, who named it Dioscurias. During this time and the subsequent Roman period, much of the city disappeared under the Black Sea, the city was named Tskhumi when it became part of the Kingdom of Abkhazia. Contested by local princes, it part of the Ottoman Empire in the 1570s. Following a period of conflict during Russian Civil War, it part of the Soviet Union. As the Soviet Union broke up in the early 1990s, the city suffered significant damage during the Georgian–Abkhazian conflict, the present-day population of 60,000 is only half of the population living there towards the end of Soviet rule. In Georgian, the city is known as სოხუმი or აყუ, in Megrelian as აყუჯიხა, the toponym Sokhumi derives from the Georgian word Tskhomi/Tskhumi, meaning beech. It is significant, that dia in several dialects of the Georgian language and among them in Megrelian means mother, in Abkhaz, the city is known as Аҟәа which according to native tradition signifies water. In the ancient Greek sources the city is referred to as Dioscurias, according to the antique traditions this name originates from the mythical Dioskouri, the twin brothers Castor and Pollux, sons of Zeus. It was believed that the town had established by Castors and Polluxs coachmen. However the names of the town may simply be the Greek comprehension of the old Georgian word combination, the medieval Georgian sources knew the town as Tskhumi. Later, under the Ottoman control, the town was known in Turkish as Suhum-Kale, Tskhumi in turn is supposed to be derived from the Svan language word for hot, or the Georgian word for hornbeam tree. The ending -i in the above forms represents the Georgian nominative-suffix, the town was initially officially described in Russian as Сухум, until 16 August 1936 when this was changed to Сухуми. This remained so until 4 December 1992, when the Supreme Council of Abkhazia restored the original version, that was approved in Russia in autumn 2008, even though Сухуми is also still being used. In English, the most common today is Sukhumi, although Sokhumi is increasing in usage and has been adopted by sources including Encyclopædia Britannica, MSN Encarta, Esri. Sukhumi is located on a bay of the eastern coast of the Black Sea and serves as a port, rail junction. It is known for its beaches, sanatoriums, mineral-water spas, Sukhumi is also an important air link for Abkhazia as the Sukhumi Dranda Airport is located nearby the city. Sukhumi contains a number of small-to-medium size hotels serving chiefly the Russian tourists, Sukhumi botanical garden was established in 1840, one of the oldest botanical gardens in the Caucasus

9.
Mingrelian language
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Mingrelian or Megrelian is a Kartvelian language spoken in Western Georgia, primarily by Mingrelians. The language was also called Iverian in the early 20th century, no reliable figures exist for the number of Mingrelian native speakers, but it is estimated to be between 500,000 and 800,000. Most speakers live in the Samegrelo region of Georgia, that comprises the Odishi Hills and the Kolkheti Lowlands, from the Black Sea coast to the Svan Mountains and the Tskhenistskali River. Smaller enclaves existed in Abkhazia, but the civil unrest there has displaced many Mingrelian speakers to other regions of Georgia. Their geographical distribution is relatively compact, which has helped to promote the transmission of the language between generations, Mingrelian is generally written with the Georgian alphabet, but has no written standard or official status. Almost all speakers are bilingual, they use Mingrelian mainly for familiar and informal conversation, in the summer of 1999, books of the Georgian poet Murman Lebanidze were burned in the Mingrelian capital, Zugdidi, after he made disparaging remarks about the Mingrelian language. Mingrelian is one of the Kartvelian languages and it is closely related to Laz, from which it has differentiated mostly in the last 500 years, after the northern and southern communities were separated by Turkic invasions. It is somewhat closely related to Georgian and even more distantly related to Svan. Mingrelian is not mutually intelligible with any of other languages. Some linguists refer to Mingrelian and Laz as grouped within the Zan languages, Zan had already split into Mingrelian and Laz variants by early modern times, however, and it is not customary to speak of a unified Zan language today. The oldest surviving texts in Mingrelian date from the 19th century, the earliest linguistic studies of Mingrelian include a phonetic analysis by Aleksandre Tsagareli, and grammars by Ioseb Kipshidze and Shalva Beridze. From 1930 to 1938 several newspapers were published in Mingrelian, such as Kazakhishi Gazeti, Komuna, Samargalosh Chai, Narazenish Chai, Mingrelian has five primary vowels a, e, i, o, u. The Zugdidi-Samurzaqano dialect has a sixth, ə, which is the result of reduction of i and u. Consonant inventory of Mingrelian is almost identical to Laz, Georgian, and Svan. Certain pairs of vowels reduce to single vowels, ae and ai → ee → e ao, oa, in word-initial prevocalic and intervocalic positions, q → ʔ. Before the consonant v, q → ʔ/ḳ, the common types are, voicing/devoicing of voiceless/voiced consonants before voiced/voiceless ones. Glottalization of consonants before the ones and the glottal stop. If the stem contains r then the suffixes -ar and -ur transform to -al and -ul, before the stops and affricates, an inorganic augmentation n may appear. Megrelian is written in the Mkhedruli script, Aleksandre Tsagareli, Megrelskie Etiudi, Analiz Fonetiki Megrelskogo Yazika

10.
Svan language
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The Svan language is a Kartvelian language spoken in the western Georgian region of Svaneti primarily by the Svan people. With its speakers variously estimated to be between 30,000 and 80,000, the UNESCO designates Svan as a endangered language. It is of particular interest because it has retained many features that have been lost in the other Kartvelian languages. Like all languages of the Kartvelian family, Svan has a number of consonants. It has agreement between subject and object, and a split-ergative morphosyntactic system, verbs are marked for aspect, evidentiality and version. Svan retains the voiceless aspirated uvular plosive, /qʰ/, and the glides /w/ and its morphology is less regular than that of the other three sister languages, and there are notable differences in verbal inflections. Svan is the language of fewer than 30,000 Svans, living in the mountains of Svaneti, i. e. in the districts of Mestia and Lentekhi of Georgia, along the Enguri, Tskhenistskali. Some Svan speakers live in the Kodori Valley of the de facto independent republic of Abkhazia, although conditions there make it difficult to reliably establish their numbers, there are only an estimated 2,500 Svan individuals living there. The language is used in familiar and casual social communication and it has no written standard or official status. Most speakers also speak Georgian, the official language, and use it as their literary. There is no instruction in Svan, and the number of speakers is declining due to the dispersal of the Svan population in the face of increasing economic hardship. The language is regarded as being endangered, as proficiency in it among people is limited. Svan is the most differentiated member of the four Kartvelian languages and is believed to have split off in the 2nd millennium BC or earlier, about one thousand years before Georgian did. The Svan language is divided into the dialects and subdialects, Upper Svan Upper Bal, Ushguli, Kala, Ipar, Mulakh, Mestia, Lenzer. Lower Bal, Becho, Tskhumar, Etser, Par, Chubekh, lentekhian, Lentekhi, Kheled, Khopur, Rtskhmelur, Cholur Freely varies between and Apart from the odd /eː/, only Upper Bal and Lashkh dialects have long vowels. Only Upper Bal has /æ, æː/, Lashkh does not have the front rounded vowels /œ, œː, y, yː/. The digraphs ჳი /y/ ჳე /œ/ are used in the Lower Bal and Lentekh dialects, and occasionally in Upper Bal, Svan at TITUS database ECLING - Svan. Svan alphabet and language at Omniglot Svan Youth literature in Svan language

11.
Armenian language
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The Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenians. Like Hellenic Greek, it has its own branch in the language tree. It is the language of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. It has historically been spoken throughout the Armenian Highlands and today is spoken in the Armenian diaspora. Armenian has its own script, the Armenian alphabet, introduced in 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots. Armenian is an independent branch of the Indo-European languages and it is of interest to linguists for its distinctive phonological developments within that family. Armenian exhibits more satemization than centumization, although it is not classified as belonging to either of these subgroups, Armenia was a monolingual country by the 2nd century BC at the latest. Its language has a literary history, with a 5th-century Bible translation as its oldest surviving text. Its vocabulary has been influenced by Western Middle Iranian languages, particularly Parthian, and to an extent by Greek, Persian. There are two standardized modern literary forms, Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian, with which most contemporary dialects are mutually intelligible and he is also credited by some with the creation of the Caucasian Albanian alphabet. In The Anabasis, Xenophon describes many aspects of Armenian village life and he relates that the Armenian people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like the language of the Persians. W. M. However, unlike shared innovations, the retention of archaisms is not considered conclusive evidence of a period of common isolated development. Some of the terms he gives admittedly have an Akkadian or Sumerian provenance, loan words from Iranian languages, along with the other ancient accounts such as that of Xenophon above, initially led linguists to erroneously classify Armenian as an Iranian language. Scholars such as Paul de Lagarde and F. Müller believed that the similarities between the two meant that Iranian and Armenian were the same language. The distinctness of Armenian was recognized when philologist Heinrich Hübschmann used the method to distinguish two layers of Iranian loans from the older Armenian vocabulary. Meillets hypothesis became popular in the wake of his Esquisse, eric P. Hamp supports the Graeco-Armenian thesis, anticipating even a time when we should speak of Helleno-Armenian. Nevertheless, as Fortson comments, by the time we reach our earliest Armenian records in the 5th century AD, graeco--Aryan is a hypothetical clade within the Indo-European family, ancestral to the Greek language, the Armenian language, and the Indo-Iranian languages. Graeco-Aryan unity would have divided into Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian by the mid-third millennium BC

12.
Demonym
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A demonym is a word that identifies residents or natives of a particular place, which is derived from the name of that particular place. It is a neologism, previously gentilic was recorded in English dictionaries, e. g. the Oxford English Dictionary, thus a Thai may be any resident or citizen of Thailand, of any ethnic group, or more narrowly a member of the Thai people. Conversely, some groups of people may be associated with multiple demonyms, for example, a native of the United Kingdom may be called a British person, a Brit, or a Briton. In some languages, when a parallel demonym does not exist, in English, demonyms are capitalized and are often the same as the adjectival form of the place, e. g. Egyptian, Japanese, or Greek. Significant exceptions exist, for instance the adjectival form of Spain is Spanish, English widely includes country-level demonyms such as Ethiopian or Guatemalan and more local demonyms such as Seoulite, Wisconsinite, Chicagoan, Michigander, Fluminense, and Paulista. Some places lack a commonly used and accepted demonym and this poses a particular challenge to those toponymists who research demonyms. The word gentilic comes from the Latin gentilis and the English suffix -ic, the word demonym was derived from the Greek word meaning populace with the suffix for name. National Geographic attributes the term demonym to Merriam-Webster editor Paul Dickson in a recent work from 1990 and it was subsequently popularized in this sense in 1997 by Dickson in his book Labels for Locals. However, in What Do You Call a Person From, a Dictionary of Resident Names attributed the term to George H. Scheetz, in his Names Names, A Descriptive and Prescriptive Onymicon, which is apparently where the term first appears. Several linguistic elements are used to create demonyms in the English language, the most common is to add a suffix to the end of the location name, slightly modified in some instances. Cairo → Cairene Cyrenaica → Cyrene Damascus → Damascene Greece → Greek Nazareth → Nazarene Slovenia → Slovene Often used for Middle Eastern locations and European locations. Kingston-upon-Hull → Hullensian Leeds → Leodensian Spain → Spaniard Savoy → Savoyard -ese is usually considered proper only as an adjective, thus, a Chinese person is used rather than a Chinese. Monaco → Monégasque Menton → Mentonasque Basque Country → Basque Often used for French locations, mostly they are from Africa and the Pacific, and are not generally known or used outside the country concerned. In much of East Africa, a person of an ethnic group will be denoted by a prefix. For example, a person of the Luba people would be a Muluba, the plural form Baluba, similar patterns with minor variations in the prefixes exist throughout on a tribal level. And Fijians who are indigenous Fijians are known as Kaiviti and these demonyms are usually more informal and colloquial. In the United States such informal demonyms frequently become associated with mascots of the sports teams of the state university system. In other countries the origins are often disputed and these will typically be formed using the standard models above

13.
Unitary state
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The majority of states in the world have a unitary system of government. Of the 193 UN member states,165 of them are governed as unitary states, unitary states are contrasted with federal states. In a unitary state, sub-national units are created and abolished, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is an example of a unitary state. Many unitary states have no areas possessing a degree of autonomy, in such countries, sub-national regions cannot decide their own laws. Examples are the Republic of Ireland and the Kingdom of Norway, in federal states, the sub-national governments share powers with the central government as equal actors through a written constitution, to which the consent of both is required to make amendments. This means that the units have a right of existence. The United States of America is an example of a federal state, under the U. S. Constitution, powers are shared between the federal government and the states

14.
Semi-presidential system
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A semi-presidential system is a system of government in which a president exists alongside a prime minister and a cabinet, with the latter two being responsible to the legislature of a state. There are two subtypes of semi-presidentialism, premier-presidentialism and president-parliamentarism. Under the premier-presidential system, the minister and cabinet are exclusively accountable to parliament. The president chooses the prime minister and cabinet, but only the parliament may remove them from office with a vote of no confidence, the president does not have the right to dismiss the prime minister or the cabinet. However, in cases, the president can circumvent this limitation by exercising the discretionary power of dissolving the assembly. This subtype is used in Burkina Faso, France, Georgia, Lithuania, Madagascar, Mali, Mongolia, Niger, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Senegal, Sri Lanka and Ukraine. Under the president-parliamentary system, the minister and cabinet are dually accountable to the president. The president chooses the prime minister and the cabinet but must have the support of the parliament majority for his choice. In order to remove a prime minister or the cabinet from power. This form of semi-presidentialism is much closer to pure presidentialism and it is used in Armenia, Georgia between 2004 and 2013, Mozambique, Namibia, Russia, Taiwan and Ukraine between 1996 and 2005, and again from 2010 to 2014. It was used in Germany during the Weimarer Republik, as the regime between 1919 and 1933 is called unofficially. The powers that are divided between president and prime minister can vary greatly between countries and it is up to the president to decide, how much autonomy he leaves to his prime minister to act on his own. Semi-presidential systems may experience periods in which the President and the Prime Minister are from differing political parties. This is called cohabitation, a term originated in France when the situation first arose in the 1980s. In most cases, cohabitation results from a system in which the two executives are not elected at the time or for the same term. For example, in 1981, France elected both a Socialist president and legislature, which yielded a Socialist premier, but whereas the presidents term of office was for seven years, the National Assembly only served for five. When, in the 1986 legislative election, the French people elected a right-of-centre Assembly, however, in 2000, amendments to the French Constitution reduced the length of the French Presidents term from seven to five years. This has significantly lowered the chances of occurring, as parliamentary

15.
Republic
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It is a government where the head of state is not a monarch. Both modern and ancient republics vary widely in their ideology, composition, in the classical and medieval period of Europe, many states were fashioned on the Roman Republic, which referred to the governance of the city of Rome, between it having kings and emperors. The Italian medieval and Renaissance political tradition, today referred to as humanism, is sometimes considered to derive directly from Roman republicans such as Sallust. Republics were not equated with classical democracies such as Athens, but had a democratic aspect, Republics became more common in the Western world starting in the late 18th century, eventually displacing absolute monarchy as the most common form of government in Europe. In modern republics, the executive is legitimized both by a constitution and by popular suffrage, for instance, Article IV of the United States Constitution guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government. The term originates as the Latin translation of Greek word politeia, cicero, among other Latin writers, translated politeia as res publica and it was in turn translated by Renaissance scholars as republic. The term politeia can be translated as form of government, polity, or regime, and is therefore not always a word for a specific type of regime as the modern word republic is. And also amongst classical Latin, the term republic can be used in a way to refer to any regime. In medieval Northern Italy, a number of city states had commune or signoria based governments, in the late Middle Ages, writers, such as Giovanni Villani, began writing about the nature of these states and the differences from other types of regime. They used terms such as libertas populi, a free people, the terminology changed in the 15th century as the renewed interest in the writings of Ancient Rome caused writers to prefer using classical terminology. To describe non-monarchical states writers, most importantly Leonardo Bruni, adopted the Latin phrase res publica. While Bruni and Machiavelli used the term to describe the states of Northern Italy, which were not monarchies, the term can quite literally be translated as public matter. It was most often used by Roman writers to refer to the state and government, in subsequent centuries, the English word commonwealth came to be used as a translation of res publica, and its use in English was comparable to how the Romans used the term res publica. Notably, during The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell the word commonwealth was the most common term to call the new monarchless state, likewise, in Polish, the term was translated as rzeczpospolita, although the translation is now only used with respect to Poland. Presently, the term republic commonly means a system of government which derives its power from the rather than from another basis. After the classical period, during the Middle Ages, many cities developed again. The modern type of itself is different from any type of state found in the classical world. Nevertheless, there are a number of states of the era that are today still called republics

16.
President of Abkhazia
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The position of President of Abkhazia was created in 1994. Before the office of president was created the head of state position was known as the Chairman of Parliament between 1992 and the creation of the 1994 constitution, before the position of Chairman of Parliament, the highest office in Abkhazia was the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet. The post would last from the declaration of sovereignty from the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic on 25 August 1990 until the declaration of independence on 23 July 1992. MP Daur Arshba claimed that the decision had been taken illegally, — Almighty God, give me strength to serve country and people. Government of the Republic of Abkhazia Prime Minister of Abkhazia Minister for Foreign Affairs of Abkhazia President of the Republic of Abkhazia

17.
Raul Khajimba
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Raul Khajimba is the current President of Abkhazia, having been elected in 2014 after the May Revolution. He was also Chairman of the Forum for the National Unity of Abkhazia from 2010 -2015, Khajimba previously held the offices of Vice President, Prime Minister and Defence Minister. He unsuccessfully ran for President in 2004,2009 and 2011, Raul Khajimba was born on 21 March 1958 in Tkvarcheli, where he went to school and worked as a mechanic at the power station. From 1976 until 1978, he served in the Soviet Air Defence Forces, from 1979 until 1984, he graduated from the Law Faculty of the Abkhazian State University. From 1985 until 1986 Khajimba studied at the KGB school in Minsk, during the 1992–1993 war with Georgia, Khajimba was the head of the military intelligence and counterintelligence operation on the eastern front. For his work, he was awarded the Order of Leon, from 1996 until 1998, Khajimba headed the anti-smuggling division of the State Customs Committee. In 1998, he became its Deputy Chairman, after a bomb attack on 13 December 1999 in Sukhumi targeting government officials, President Ardzinba dismissed Astamur Tarba as Security Service Chairman and appointed Khajimba in his stead. On 18 June 2001, he additionally became First Vice Premier, on 1 November he was succeeded as Head of the State Security Service by Interior Minister Zurab Agumava. On 16 May 2002, Khajimba was appointed Defence Minister, replacing Vladimir Mikanba, in the evening of 7 April 2003, Prime Minister Gennadi Gagulia filed for resignation. Early in the morning of day, nine prisoners had escaped. President Ardzinba initially refused to accept Gagulias resignation, but was forced to agree on 8 April, on 22 April 2003, Raul Khajimba was appointed the new Prime Minister. He remained Prime Minister until October 2004, as then-President Vladislav Ardzinba was seriously ill and did not appear in public during his term, Khajimba acted as a de facto head of state in his absence. In this role, he met a number of leaders, including Igor Ivanov. He has been an opponent of reunification with Georgia. Khadjimba was tipped as the favourite to win the October 2004 presidential elections, both men campaigned on his behalf and dedicated significant resources to assisting the Khadjimba campaign. However, opposition candidate Sergei Bagapsh polled more votes on election day, after the election, both Bagapsh and Khadjimba claimed victory, with Khadjimba alleging that electoral fraud in the pro-Bagapsh Gali region had been responsible for Bagapshs win. In December 2004, Khadjimba and Bagapsh came to an agreement which would see the run as part of a national unity ticket in repeat elections. As part of deal, the position of vice-president was given expanded powers covering defence

18.
Prime Minister of Abkhazia
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The Prime Minister of Abkhazia is the head of government of the Republic of Abkhazia. While the Presidency was held by one man – Vladislav Ardzinba – from 1994 to 2005 and it was created with the November 1994 adoption of the Constitution of Abkhazia, and Gennady Gagulia was appointed to the position in January 1995. After Sergei Bagapsh succeeded Ardzinba to the Presidency in February 2005, Bagapsh and Ankvab won the election, and on 13 February 2010, Ankvab was succeeded by long-time Minister for Foreign Affairs Sergei Shamba. After Alexander Ankvab defeated Sergei Shamba in the 2011 presidential election, on 2 June 2014, Lakerbaia resigned as a result of the Abkhazian Revolution and Vice Premier Vladimir Delba was appointed acting Prime Minister. The 2014 presidential election was won by opposition leader Raul Khajimba, Butba was finally dismissed by President Khajimba on 16 March 2015, and temporarily replaced by First Vice Premier Shamil Adzynba. In a press conference afterwards, Butba said that he had made Khajimba aware of his intention to resign and he claimed that the Presidential Administration had taken over many of the responsibilities of the Prime Minister, creating a second government. On 20 March, Khajimba appointed MP and former United Abkhazia Chairman Artur Mikvabia as Butbas successor, Khajimba again appointed Adzynba as acting Prime Minister. On 5 August, he appointed Newly Appointed Presidential Administration Head Beslan Bartsits as the new Prime Minister

19.
People's Assembly of Abkhazia
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The Peoples Assembly of the Republic of Abkhazia is the unicameral legislature of the Republic of Abkhazia. The Peoples Assembly has 35 members, elected for terms in single-seat constituencies. On 30 July 2015, Parliament failed to support an amendment increasing the number of members to 45. The proposal was supported by 19 Deputies, four short of the required two-thirds majority, valeri Bganba is the current speaker of parliament. He was elected on 3 April 2012, succeeding Nugzar Ashuba who had failed re-election in the 2012 elections, there are currently four Vice-Speakers, Daur Arshba, Otari Tsvizhba, Emma Gamisonia and Vagarshak Kosyan. Throughout the years, the number of Vice-Speakers has increased from two to three to four

20.
Geography of Abkhazia
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Abkhazia is a region in South Caucasus. It is de facto independent republic, but is internationally recognized as an autonomous republic within Georgia. It is recognized as an independent nation by Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nauru, the article deals with the geography and climate of Abkhazia. Abkhazia covers an area of about 8,660 square kilometres at the end of Georgia. The Caucasus Mountains to the north and the northeast divide Abkhazia from Circassia, to the east, the region is bordered by Svaneti. To the southeast, Abkhazia is bounded by Samegrelo, and on the south, the topography is varied as it ranges from the lowlands around the black Sea to the high peaks in the north. The region is mountainous and settlement is largely confined to the coast. The Greater Caucasus Mountain Range runs along the northern border. The Gagra, Bzyb, and Kodori Ranges branch off from the Main Caucasus Range, the highest peaks of Abkhazia are in the northeast and east and several exceed 4,000 meters above sea level. The landscapes of Abkhazia range from forests and citrus plantations, to eternal snows. Because of Abkhazias complex topographic setting, most of the territory has been spared from significant human cultivation, therefore, a large portion of Abkhazia is still covered by forests today. Abkhazia is also known for the high number of endemic species of plants that are found only in the Caucasus, only in Georgia. The forests of Abkhazia used to be prevalent and have since been cleared drastically. They consisted of oak, beech, and hornbeam, southeastern Abkhazia, a part of the Colchis Lowland, is still covered by Colchian forests, or by citrus and tea plantations. The worlds deepest known cave, Krubera Cave, is located in Abkhazias western Caucasus mountains, the latest survey has measured the vertical span of this cave system as 2,191 m between its highest and lowest explored points. The foothills, up to an elevation of 600 meters above sea level, are covered by forests, and include tree species such as oak, hornbeam, beech. The forest covers from 600 to 1,800 meters above sea level and is made up of deciduous and coniferous tree species. The most common species are beech, spruce, and fir, the mixed forest zone is home to some of the tallest trees in Europe and the world, where some specimens of the Nordmann Fir reach heights of over 70 meters

21.
Demographics of Abkhazia
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The ethnic composition of Abkhazia in past and current times plays a central role in the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict. The exact present size of Abkhazias population is unclear, according to the census carried out in 2003 it measured 215,972 people, but this is contested by Georgian authorities. The Department of Statistics of Georgia estimated Abkhazias population to be approximately 179,000 in 2003, encyclopædia Britannica estimates the population in 2007 at 180,000 and the International Crisis Group estimates Abkhazias total population in 2006 to be between 157,000 and 190,000. The size of Abkhazias population more than halved due to the 1992-1993 war - at the time of the 1989 census it had measured 525,061, according to the last census in 2011 Abkhazia had 240,705 inhabitants. The population of Abkhazia remains ethnically diverse, even after the 1992-1993 War. At present the population of Abkhazia is mainly made up of ethnic Abkhaz, Georgians, Hamshemin Armenians, and Russians. Prior to the war, ethnic Georgians made up 45. 7% of Abkhazias population, however, by 1993, most Georgians, samurzaqano is a present-day Gali district of Abkhazia. The ethnicity of Samurzaqanoans is disputed, but the comparison of 1886 figures clearly shows that they were Abkhaz. The Family Lists compile additional summary tables, and in these, Samurzaq’anoans are not listed, in Batum district 1,469 Abkhaz were listed. Thus 58,963 remain—clearly, these are the Abkhaz plus the Samurzaq’anoans in Sukhum district, nowadays Samurzaqanoans are linguistically assimilated with Mingrelians. The population of the Sukhumi district was about 100,000 at that time, greeks, Russians and Armenians composed 3. 5%, 2% and 1. 5% of the districts population. By the end of the century, Abkhazians made up slightly more than 53% of the population of Abkhazia. According to the 1917 agricultural census organized by the Russian Provisional Government, Georgians and Abkhaz composed 41. 7% and 30, at that time Gagra and its vicinity were not part of Abkhazia. In 2008 almost all of the circa 2000 Svans in the upper Kodori Valley fled Abkhazia when this tract of land was conquered by the Abkhazian army during the August war. The Abkhazian authorities have appealed for the Svan refugees to return, in 1993, during the military conflict, nearly all Samurzaqanoans left Abkhazia, however after some time nearly all came back. The Abkhazian government has been trying to members of the Abkhaz diaspora. In September 2014, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Abkhazia announced that 273 Ukrainians fleeing the War in Donbass had come to Abkhazia, the following tables summarise the results of the censuses carried out in Abkhazia. Demographics of Georgia Armenians in Abkhazia History of the Jews in Abkhazia Afro-Abkhazians

22.
Gross domestic product
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Gross Domestic Product is a monetary measure of the market value of all final goods and services produced in a period. Nominal GDP estimates are used to determine the economic performance of a whole country or region. The OECD defines GDP as a measure of production equal to the sum of the gross values added of all resident and institutional units engaged in production. ”An IMF publication states that GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and services - that is. Total GDP can also be broken down into the contribution of industry or sector of the economy. The ratio of GDP to the population of the region is the per capita GDP. William Petty came up with a concept of GDP to defend landlords against unfair taxation during warfare between the Dutch and the English between 1652 and 1674. Charles Davenant developed the method further in 1695, the modern concept of GDP was first developed by Simon Kuznets for a US Congress report in 1934. In this report, Kuznets warned against its use as a measure of welfare, after the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, GDP became the main tool for measuring a countrys economy. The switch from GNP to GDP in the US was in 1991, the history of the concept of GDP should be distinguished from the history of changes in ways of estimating it. The value added by firms is relatively easy to calculate from their accounts, but the value added by the sector, by financial industries. GDP can be determined in three ways, all of which should, in principle, give the same result and they are the production approach, the income approach, or the expenditure approach. The most direct of the three is the approach, which sums the outputs of every class of enterprise to arrive at the total. The income approach works on the principle that the incomes of the factors must be equal to the value of their product. This approach mirrors the OECD definition given above, deduct intermediate consumption from gross value to obtain the gross value added. Gross value added = gross value of output – value of intermediate consumption, value of output = value of the total sales of goods and services plus value of changes in the inventories. The sum of the value added in the various economic activities is known as GDP at factor cost. GDP at factor cost plus indirect taxes less subsidies on products = GDP at producer price, for measuring output of domestic product, economic activities are classified into various sectors. Subtracting each sectors intermediate consumption from gross output gives the GDP at factor cost, adding indirect tax minus subsidies in GDP at factor cost gives the GDP at producer prices

23.
Abkhazian apsar
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The apsar is a currency of Abkhazia. So far, only coins in denominations of 10,25 and 50 apsars have been issued, while the coins are legal tender in the Republic of Abkhazia, their usage is very limited, and the coins are mostly made for collectors. In Abkhazia, the Russian ruble is used in practice, the first apsar coins were introduced in 2008. The Bank of Abkhazia is responsible for the coins, and has so far issued two series, Outstanding personalities of Abkhazia and The patriotic war of the Abkhaz nation 1992–1993. The number of coins produced is low,2,000 silver coins are minted and 1,000 gold coins, Coins minted by the Bank of Abkhazia Coins of Abkhazia at CISCoins. net

24.
Russian ruble
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The Russian ruble is the currency of the Russian Federation, the two partially recognized republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and the two unrecognized republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. The ruble is subdivided into 100 kopeks, the ruble was the currency of the Russian Empire and of the Soviet Union. Today apart from Russia, Belarus and Transnistria uses currencies with the same name, the ruble was the worlds first decimal currency, it was decimalised in 1704 when the ruble became legally equal to 100 kopeks. In 1992 the Soviet ruble was replaced with the Russian ruble at the rate 1 SUR =1 RUR. In 1998 following the crisis, the Russian ruble was redenominated with the new code RUB. Today, although RUB being the code of the Russian ruble. The ruble is the oldest national currency after the Pound sterling in the world, the ruble has been used on the Russian territories since the 13th century. The modern Russian ruble actually appeared in December 1991 in parallel with the Soviet ruble, following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Soviet ruble remained the currency of the Russian Federation until 1992. A new set of coins was issued in 1992 and a new set of banknotes was issued in the name of Bank of Russia in 1993. The Russian ruble with the ISO4217 code is RUR and number 810 replaced the Soviet ruble at the rate 1 SUR =1 RUR. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation introduced new coins in 1992 in denominations of 1,5,10,20,50 and 100 rubles, the coins depict the double-headed eagle without a crown, sceptre and globus cruciger above the legend Банк России. It is exactly the same eagle, that the artist Ivan Bilibin painted after the February Revolution as a coat of arms for the Russian Republic. The 1 and 5 ruble coins were minted in brass-clad steel, the 10 and 20 ruble coins in cupro-nickel, in 1993, aluminium-bronze 50 ruble coins and cupro-nickel-zinc 100 ruble coins were issued, and the material of 10 and 20 ruble coins s was changed to nickel-plated steel. In 1995 the material of 50 ruble coins was changed to brass-plated steel, as high inflation persisted, the lowest denominations disappeared from circulation and the other denominations became rarely used. During this period the commemorative one ruble coin was regularly issued and it was practically identical in size and weight to a 5 Swiss franc coin. For this reason, there have been instances of ruble coins being used on a large scale to defraud automated vending machines in Switzerland. In 1961, new State Treasury notes were introduced for 1,3 and 5 rubles, along with new State Bank notes for 10,25,50 and 100 rubles. In 1991, the State Bank took over production of 1,3 and 5 ruble notes and also introduced 200,500 and 1,000 ruble notes, although the 25 ruble note was no longer issued

25.
ISO 4217
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The ISO4217 code list is used in banking and business globally. ISO4217 codes are used on tickets and international train tickets to remove any ambiguity about the price. The first two letters of the code are the two letters of the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes and the third is usually the initial of the currency itself, so Japans currency code is JPY—JP for Japan and Y for yen. This eliminates the problem caused by the dollar, franc, peso and pound being used in dozens of different countries. Also, if a currency is revalued, the currency codes last letter is changed to distinguish it from the old currency. Other changes can be seen, however, the Russian ruble, for example, changed from RUR to RUB and these currency units are denominated as one troy ounce of the specified metal as opposed to USD1 or EUR1. The code XTS is reserved for use in testing, the code XXX is used to denote a transaction involving no currency. There are also codes specifying certain monetary instruments used in international finance, the codes for most supranational currencies, such as the East Caribbean dollar, the CFP franc, the CFA franc BEAC and the CFA franc BCEAO. The predecessor to the euro, the European Currency Unit, had the code XEU, the use of an initial letter X for these purposes is facilitated by the ISO3166 rule that no official country code beginning with X will ever be assigned. Because of this rule ISO4217 can use X codes without risk of clashing with a country code. ISO3166 country codes beginning with X are used for private custom use, consequently, ISO4217 can use X codes for non-country-specific currencies without risk of clashing with future country codes. The inclusion of EU in the ISO 3166-1 reserved codes list, the ISO4217 standard includes a crude mechanism for expressing the relationship between a major currency unit and its corresponding minor currency unit. This mechanism is called the exponent and assumes a base of 10. For example, USD is equal to 100 of its currency unit the cent. So the USD has exponent 2, the code JPY is given the exponent 0, because its minor unit, the sen, although nominally valued at 1/100 of a yen, is of such negligible value that it is no longer used. Usually, as with the USD, the currency unit has a value that is 1/100 of the major unit, but in some cases 1/1000 is used. Mauritania does not use a decimal division of units, setting 1 ouguiya equal to 5 khoums, some currencies do not have any minor currency unit at all and these are given an exponent of 0, as with currencies whose minor units are unused due to negligible value. There is also a code number assigned to each currency

26.
Coordinated Universal Time
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Coordinated Universal Time, abbreviated to UTC, is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about 1 second of mean time at 0° longitude. It is one of closely related successors to Greenwich Mean Time. For most purposes, UTC is considered interchangeable with GMT, the first Coordinated Universal Time was informally adopted on 1 January 1960. This change also adopted leap seconds to simplify future adjustments, a number of proposals have been made to replace UTC with a new system that would eliminate leap seconds, but no consensus has yet been reached. Leap seconds are inserted as necessary to keep UTC within 0.9 seconds of universal time, see the Current number of leap seconds section for the number of leap seconds inserted to date. The official abbreviation for Coordinated Universal Time is UTC and this abbreviation arose from a desire by the International Telecommunication Union and the International Astronomical Union to use the same abbreviation in all languages. English speakers originally proposed CUT, while French speakers proposed TUC, the compromise that emerged was UTC, which conforms to the pattern for the abbreviations of the variants of Universal Time. Time zones around the world are expressed using positive or negative offsets from UTC, the westernmost time zone uses UTC−12, being twelve hours behind UTC, the easternmost time zone, theoretically, uses UTC+12, being twelve hours ahead of UTC. In 1995, the nation of Kiribati moved those of its atolls in the Line Islands from UTC-10 to UTC+14 so that the country would all be on the same day. UTC is used in internet and World Wide Web standards. The Network Time Protocol, designed to synchronise the clocks of computers over the internet, computer servers, online services and other entities that rely on having a universally accepted time use UTC as it is more specific than GMT. If only limited precision is needed, clients can obtain the current UTC from a number of official internet UTC servers, for sub-microsecond precision, clients can obtain the time from satellite signals. UTC is also the standard used in aviation, e. g. for flight plans. Weather forecasts and maps all use UTC to avoid confusion about time zones, the International Space Station also uses UTC as a time standard. Amateur radio operators often schedule their radio contacts in UTC, because transmissions on some frequencies can be picked up by many time zones, UTC is also used in digital tachographs used on large goods vehicles under EU and AETR rules. UTC divides time into days, hours, minutes and seconds, days are conventionally identified using the Gregorian calendar, but Julian day numbers can also be used. Each day contains 24 hours and each hour contains 60 minutes, the number of seconds in a minute is usually 60, but with an occasional leap second, it may be 61 or 59 instead

27.
Left- and right-hand traffic
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This is so fundamental to traffic flow that it is sometimes referred to as the rule of the road. About two-thirds of the population use RHT, with the remaining 76 countries and territories using LHT. Countries that use LHT account for about a sixth of the worlds area, in the early 1900s some countries including Canada, Spain, and Brazil had different rules in different parts of the country. During the 1900s many countries standardised within their jurisdictions, and changed from LHT to RHT, in 1919,104 of the worlds territories were LHT and an equal number were RHT. From 1919 to 1986,34 of the LHT territories switched to RHT, many of the countries with LHT are former British colonies in the Caribbean, Southern Africa, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Japan, Thailand, Nepal, Bhutan, Mozambique, Suriname, East Timor, in Europe, only four countries still drive on the left, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Malta, and Cyprus, all of which are islands. Nearly all countries use one side or the other throughout their entire territory, most exceptions are due to historical considerations and involve islands with no road connection to the main part of a country. China is RHT except the Special Administrative Regions of China of Hong Kong, the United States is RHT except the United States Virgin Islands. The United Kingdom is LHT, but its overseas territories of Gibraltar, according to the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, water traffic is RHT. For aircraft the US Federal Aviation Regulations provide for passing on the right, light rail vehicles generally operate on the same side as other road traffic in the country. Many countries use RHT for automobiles but LHT for trains, often because of the influence of the British on early railway systems, in some countries rail traffic remained LHT after automobile traffic switched to RHT, for example in China, Brazil, and Argentina. However, France, Belgium, and Switzerland have used RHT for automobiles since their introduction, there is no technical reason to prefer one side over the other. Ancient Greek, Egyptian, and Roman troops kept to the left when marching, in 1998, archaeologists found a well-preserved double track leading to a Roman quarry near Swindon. The first reference in English law to an order for LHT was in 1756, northcote Parkinson, believed that ancient travellers on horseback or on foot generally kept to the left, since most people were right handed. If two men riding on horseback were to start a fight, each would edge toward the left, in the year 1300, Pope Boniface VIII directed pilgrims to keep left. In the late 1700s, traffic in the United States was RHT based on use of large freight wagons pulled by several pairs of horses. The wagons had no seat, so a postilion sat on the left rear horse. Seated on the left, the driver preferred that other wagons pass him on the left so that he could be sure to keep clear of the wheels of oncoming wagons, in France, traditionally foot traffic had kept right, while carriage traffic kept left

28.
Abkhazian language
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Abkhaz /æpˈhɑːz/ is a Northwest Caucasian language most closely related to Abaza. It is spoken mostly by the Abkhaz people and it is the official language of Abkhazia where around 100,000 people speak it. Furthermore, it is spoken by thousands of members of the Abkhazian diaspora in Turkey, Georgias other autonomous republic of Adjara, Syria, Jordan, the Russian census of 2010 reported 6,786 speakers of Abkhaz in Russia. Abkhaz is a Northwest Caucasian language and is related to Adyghe. Grammatically, the two are similar, however, the differences in phonology are substantial and are the main reason for many other linguists preferring to keep the two separate. Most linguists believe that Ubykh is the closest relative to the Abkhaz–Abaza dialect continuum, Abkhaz is spoken primarily in Abkhazia. However, the number of Abkhaz speakers in these countries remains unknown due to a lack of official records. Bzyb or Bzyp, spoken in the Caucasus and in Turkey, Sadz, nowadays spoken only in Turkey, formerly also spoken between the rivers Bzyp and Khosta. The literary Abkhaz language is based on the Abzhywa dialect, Abkhaz has a very large number of consonants, with three-way voiced/voiceless/ejective and palatalized/labialized/plain distinctions. By contrast, the language has only two phonemically distinct vowels—which, however, have several allophones depending on the palatal and/or labial quality of adjacent consonants. Phonemes in green are found in the Bzyp and Sadz dialects of Abkhaz, Abkhaz is typologically classified as an agglutinative language. Like all other Northwest Caucasian languages, Abkhaz has a complex verbal system coupled with a very simple noun system. Viacheslav Chirikba has characterized Abkhaz as a language, as the verb occupies the central place in Abkhaz morphology. Abkhaz is a language that distinguishes just two cases, the nominative and the adverbial. Abkhaz uses the Cyrillic script since 1862, the first alphabet was a 37–character Cyrillic alphabet invented by Baron Peter von Uslar. In 1909 a 55-letter Cyrillic alphabet was used, a 75-letter Latin script devised by a Russian/Georgian linguist Nikolai Marr lasted for 2 years 1926–1928. The earliest extant written records of the Abkhaz language are in the Arabic script, Abkhaz has been used as a literary language for only about 100 years. Both Georgian and Abkhaz law enshrines an official status of the Abkhaz language in Abkhazia, the 1992 law of Georgia, reiterated in the 1995 Constitution, grants Abkhaz the status of second official language in the territory of Abkhazia, along with Georgian

29.
Romanization of Russian
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Romanization of the Russian alphabet is the process of transliterating the Russian language from the Cyrillic script into the Latin alphabet. Scientific transliteration, also known as the International Scholarly System, is a system that has used in linguistics since the 19th century. It is based on the Czech alphabet and formed the basis of the GOST, OST8483 was the first Soviet standard on romanization of Russian, introduced in 16 October 1935. This standard is an equivalent of GOST 16876-71 and was adopted as a standard of the COMECON. GOST7. 79-2000 System of Standards on Information, Librarianship and it is the official standard of both Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Machine readable passports is an adoption of an ICAO stadards for travel documents and it was used in Russian passports for a short period during 2010–2013. The standard was substituted in 2013 by GOST R ISO/IEC 7501-1-2013, which does not contain romanization, ISO/R9, established in 1954 and updated in 1968, was the adoption of the scientific transliteration by the International Organization for Standardization. It covers Russian and seven other Slavic languages, ISO9,1995 is the current transliteration standard from ISO. It is based on its predecessor ISO/R9,1968, which it deprecates, for Russian, the UNGEGN, a Working Group of the United Nations, in 1987 recommended a romanization system for geographical names, which was based on the 1983 version of GOST 16876-71. It may be found in some international cartographic products, American Library Association and Library of Congress romanization tables for Slavic alphabets are used in North American libraries and in the British Library since 1975. The formal, unambiguous version of the system requires some diacritics and two-letter tie characters, British Standard 2979,1958 is the main system of the Oxford University Press, and a variation was used by the British Library to catalogue publications acquired up to 1975. The BGN/PCGN system is relatively intuitive for Anglophones to read and pronounce, the portion of the system pertaining to the Russian language was adopted by BGN in 1944 and by PCGN in 1947. In Soviet international passports, transliteration was based on French rules, in 1997, with the introduction of new Russian passports, a diacritic-free English-oriented system was established by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but this system was also abandoned in 2010. In 2006, GOST52535. 1-2006 was adopted, which defines technical requirements and standards for Russian international passports, in 2010, the Federal Migratory Service of Russia approved Order No. 26, stating that all names in the passports issued after 2010 must be transliterated using GOST52535. 1-2006. The standard was abandoned in 2013, finally in 2013, Order No.320 of the Federal Migratory Service of Russia came into force. It states that all names in the passports must be transliterated using the ICAO system. This system differs from the GOST52535. 1-2006 system in two things, ц is transliterated into ts, ъ is transliterated into ie, Scholarly ¹ Some archaic letters are transcribed in different ways

30.
Black Sea
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The Black Sea is a body of water between Eastern Europe and Western Asia, bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. It is supplied by a number of rivers, such as the Danube, Dnieper, Rioni, Southern Bug. The Black Sea has an area of 436,400 km2, a depth of 2,212 m. It is constrained by the Pontic Mountains to the south and by the Caucasus Mountains to the east, the longest east-west extent is about 1,175 km. The Black Sea has a water balance, that is, a net outflow of water 300 km3 per year through the Bosphorus. Mediterranean water flows into the Black Sea as part of a two-way hydrological exchange, the Black Sea drains into the Mediterranean Sea and then the Atlantic Ocean, via the Aegean Sea and various straits. The Bosphorus Strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and these waters separate Eastern Europe and Western Asia. The Black Sea is also connected to the Sea of Azov by the Strait of Kerch, the water level has varied significantly. Due to these variations in the level in the basin. At certain critical water levels it is possible for connections with surrounding water bodies to become established and it is through the most active of these connective routes, the Turkish Straits, that the Black Sea joins the world ocean. When this hydrological link is not present, the Black Sea is a basin, operating independently of the global ocean system. Currently the Black Sea water level is high, thus water is being exchanged with the Mediterranean. The Turkish Straits connect the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea, and comprise the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Black Sea as follows, On the Southwest. The Northeastern limit of the Sea of Marmara, a line joining Cape Takil and Cape Panaghia. Strabos Geographica reports that in antiquity, the Black Sea was often just called the Sea, for the most part, Graeco-Roman tradition refers to the Black Sea as the Hospitable sea, Εὔξεινος Πόντος Eúxeinos Póntos. This is a euphemism replacing an earlier Inhospitable Sea, Πόντος Ἄξεινος Póntos Áxeinos, strabo thinks that the Black Sea was called inhospitable before Greek colonization because it was difficult to navigate, and because its shores were inhabited by savage tribes. The name was changed to hospitable after the Milesians had colonized the southern shoreline and it is also possible that the epithet Áxeinos arose by popular etymology from a Scythian word axšaina- unlit, dark, the designation Black Sea may thus date from antiquity. A map of Asia dating to 1570, entitled Asiae Nova Descriptio, from Abraham Orteliuss Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, english-language writers of the 18th century often used the name Euxine Sea to refer to the Black Sea

31.
Greater Caucasus
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Greater Caucasus is the major mountain range of the Caucasus Mountains. In the drier Eastern Caucasus, the mountains are mostly treeless, the watershed of the Caucasus is also considered the boundary between Eastern Europe and Western Asia. The border of Russia with Georgia and Azerbaijan runs along the most of the Caucasus length, the Georgian Military Road and Trans-Caucasus Highway traverse this mountain range at altitudes of up to 3,000 metres. The border between Russia and Georgia still follows the watershed almost exactly, while Azerbaijan in its northeastern corner has five districts north of the watershed, mount Elbrus,5,642 m, 43°21′18″N 42°26′21″E is the highest mountain in Europe

32.
Government of the Republic of Abkhazia
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The Government of the Republic of Abkhazia governs the partially recognised Republic of Abkhazia. The Republic of Abkhazia is headed by the President, a post held since 25 September 2014 by Raul Khajimba and they are served by a cabinet of ministers, headed by a Prime Minister, a post currently held by Artur Mikvabia. The Peoples Assembly is the parliament of the Republic of Abkhazia, the Military Procuracy and Military Court were founded in March 1993. On 11 July 1993, the Military Court was turned into the Military Tribunal, the Prosecutors Office was founded on 15 April 1994. The first Prosecutor General was Anri Jergenia, after Jergenia became Prime Minister in 2001, he was succeeded by Rauf Korua. It was reported that Koruas dismissal was motivated by his support for opposition candidate Sergei Bagapsh, the Peoples Assembly, controlled by supporters of Bagapsh, subsequently restored Korua to office. On 17 December, Ardzinba again suspended Korua and appointed his deputy Omiani Logua as acting Prosecutor General, Peoples Assembly Speaker Nugzar Ashuba again rejected Ardzinbas decision and called upon Korua to continue his work. In February 2007, Saferbei Mikanba was appointed as Prosecutor General, following the May 2014 Revolution, on 5 June the Peoples Assembly voted to dismiss Mikanba as Prosecutor General. The following day, acting President Valeri Bganba appointed Deputy Prosecutor General Zurab Agumava as Acting Prosecutor General, on 9 September, Bganba extended Agumavas temporary appointment until 7 October 2014. That day, the Peoples Assembly elected Deputy Minister for Internal Affairs Aleksei Lomia to become the new Prosecutor General with 26 votes in favour,3 against and 1 abstention. Lomia resigned on 26 July 2016, coinciding with the resignation of Prime Minister Artur Mikvabia, lomias successor, Nuri Tania, was only appointed on 28 September, after Summer recess. That same day, it elected with 23 votes in favour and 3 abstentions the oppositions nominee to succeed Tania, Zurab Achba, on 16 July 2014, Parliament elected Fatima Kvitsinia Chairman of the Arbitration Court of Abkhazia. On 1 June 2015, Supreme Court Chairman Roman Mushba announced his resignation, in addition, it elected Oksana Pilia as Supreme Court Judge. On 3 March 2007, Gueorgui Otyrba was appointed as the first Commissioner for Human Rights, serving under the President of Abkhazia, on 11 February 2016, the Peoples Assembly adopted a law which instituted a new, independent office of Ombudsman. The Ombudsman is elected by the Peoples Assembly by a majority for a term of five years. Candidates may be nominated by a group measuring at least one third of the number of deputies. The Ombudsman must be a citizen and a permanent resident of Abkhazia, no person may fulfill more than two consecutive terms as Ombudsman. Government of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia Politics of Abkhazia /// President of the Republic of Abkhazia, official site // Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Abkhazia

33.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians

34.
Government of Georgia (country)
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The Cabinet of Georgia is an executive council of government ministers in Georgia. It is headed by the Prime Minister of Georgia, in the cases of utmost importance, the meetings may be led by the President of Georgia. The first Cabinet of Georgia was formed by Noe Zhordania in the Democratic Republic of Georgia in 1918, however, the first head of government was Noe Ramishvili, Zhordania succeeding him. Until 24 January 2008, the cabinet consisted of four State Ministers, after the re-election of President Mikheil Saakashvili, significant changes were made to the structure of the cabinet by the then head of the Georgian Government Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze. As a result, currently there are five State Ministers and thirteen Ministers, in Georgian politics, a State Minister enjoys seniority over a Minister as opposed to the British Cabinet where a State Minister is below a Minister by rank. The position State Minister for Reforms was abolished, the Ministers of Defense and Internal Affairs as well as the Prosecutor General were not members of the cabinet as such and were subordinated to the President of Georgia. But they are now considered to be the members of the cabinet, Cabinet of Irakli Garibashvili Cabinet of Bidzina Ivanishvili Cabinet of Zurab Zhvania Parliament of Georgia President of Georgia

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United Nations
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The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization to promote international co-operation. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was established on 24 October 1945 after World War II in order to prevent another such conflict, at its founding, the UN had 51 member states, there are now 193. The headquarters of the UN is in Manhattan, New York City, further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi, and Vienna. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states, the UNs mission to preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades by the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union and their respective allies. The organization participated in actions in Korea and the Congo. After the end of the Cold War, the UN took on major military, the UN has six principal organs, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Secretariat, the International Court of Justice, and the UN Trusteeship Council. UN System agencies include the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, UNESCO, the UNs most prominent officer is the Secretary-General, an office held by Portuguese António Guterres since 2017. Non-governmental organizations may be granted consultative status with ECOSOC and other agencies to participate in the UNs work, the organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, and a number of its officers and agencies have also been awarded the prize. Other evaluations of the UNs effectiveness have been mixed, some commentators believe the organization to be an important force for peace and human development, while others have called the organization ineffective, corrupt, or biased. Following the catastrophic loss of life in the First World War, the earliest concrete plan for a new world organization began under the aegis of the US State Department in 1939. It incorporated Soviet suggestions, but left no role for France, four Policemen was coined to refer to four major Allied countries, United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and China, which emerged in the Declaration by United Nations. Roosevelt first coined the term United Nations to describe the Allied countries, the term United Nations was first officially used when 26 governments signed this Declaration. One major change from the Atlantic Charter was the addition of a provision for religious freedom, by 1 March 1945,21 additional states had signed. Each Government pledges itself to cooperate with the Governments signatory hereto, the foregoing declaration may be adhered to by other nations which are, or which may be, rendering material assistance and contributions in the struggle for victory over Hitlerism. During the war, the United Nations became the term for the Allies. To join, countries had to sign the Declaration and declare war on the Axis, at the later meetings, Lord Halifax deputized for Mr. Eden, Wellington Koo for T. V. Soong, and Mr Gromyko for Mr. Molotov. The first meetings of the General Assembly, with 51 nations represented, the General Assembly selected New York City as the site for the headquarters of the UN, and the facility was completed in 1952. Its site—like UN headquarters buildings in Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi—is designated as international territory, the Norwegian Foreign Minister, Trygve Lie, was elected as the first UN Secretary-General

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Government of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia
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The Government of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia is an administration recognized by Georgia as the legal government of Abkhazia. Abkhazia has been de facto independent of Georgia – though with little international recognition – since the early 1990s. Vakhtang Kolbaia, elected in April 2013, is the current head of the government-in-exile, the Abkhaz side wanted assurances that Georgia would not try to solve the issue by force of arms before being a party to the talks. Between September 2006 and July 2008, the Georgian recognized government was headquartered in Upper Abkhazia, however it was forced out of all of Abkhazia in August 2008 during the Russo-Georgian war by the Abkhazian armed forces. Upper Abkhazia is a territory that has population of c.2,000 and is centered on the upper Kodori Valley, the Council of Ministers relocated to Georgia’s capital Tbilisi, where it operated as the Government of Abkhazia in exile for almost 13 years. During the Battle of the Kodori Valley Abkhazian forces loyal to the Government of the Republic of Abkhazia pushed the Government of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia out of the region of Abkhazia